anyone knows if I can use a plastic tank’s engine on a bike with a metal tank?
the only tricky point seems to be the speedo pickup, that is different... can I fit the digital pickup of the earlier metal tank bike on a later engine?
The digital speedo mount on the transmission output shaft is missing on the later models as you say. If you wanted to run the digital speedo you would need to replace the shaft (part number10 in the fiche diagram) with one from the earlier gearbox such as found in this gearbox cluster. However, the second-hand value of the complete working digital speedo is quite high and would easily cover the cost of a new after-market digital speedo that would work off a pick up fitted to the front wheel.
Another minor difference is that the oil breather pipe from the later engine is attached to the cam cover rather than the crankcases.