Sprint Filter P08 Air Filter for Road & Track – Honda VFR800 V-TEC (2002–2019) PM112S

Most engines have one intake character. The VFR800 V-TEC has two. Below a set engine speed each cylinder runs on two of its four valves; above it the second pair joins in and the head changes what it asks of the airbox, from a small fast-flowing opening to a wide one. A single filter panel sits in front of both regimes and has to be the wrong answer to neither. Sprint Filter's P08 is that panel in dry woven polyester, and what it brings this V4 is not power but an intake resistance that does not creep upwards between services.

Key Features

• Dry woven polyester in a single layer, used with no oil of any kind, so nothing from the element can be carried into the intake
• Filters at 80 µm and flows 5,050 l/m²/sec — Sprint Filter's standard pick for road and track duty
• Woven from polyester thread of ø 22 microns and upwards, which puts the aperture in the weave rather than in a mat of pressed fibres
• Around double the working cloth of an ordinary performance filter within the same panel footprint
• Takes the place of the paper element exactly; airbox, intake ducts and the standard fuel map are all left alone
• Returned to service by washing instead of thrown away, and guaranteed for two years from the date it is bought

An engine with two ways of breathing

The point of V-TEC on this V4 was to keep a two-valve engine's manners low down and gain a four-valve engine's appetite higher up. Both halves are fed through the same box and the same piece of cloth. In the two-valve regime the cylinder is drawing modestly and almost any filter looks adequate.

Where a tired filter shows itself first

Restriction announces itself where demand is highest, which on this engine means the half of the rev range the changeover hands over to. Ride the VFR mostly below it, in traffic and on the commute, and an element long past its best can hide for months: two valves per cylinder never ask for enough air to expose it. It does not move the changeover point, add valve lift or alter fuelling.

Care and cleaning

The usual service for the PM112S is air: hold a compressed-air line to the clean side and blow the dust outwards, against the direction it arrived from. If the element has come through a wet or salted season, or looks grimy rather than dusty, wash it by hand in lukewarm water with a mild detergent and rinse it through until the run-off is clear. Drying is the step people get wrong — leave it somewhere airy and let it take its time, because heat guns, radiators and open flames will ruin the polyester. Refit it dry and untreated, with no oil or spray of any sort. The maintenance instructions from Sprint Filter live in the Downloads tab.

Fitment & Compatibility

Cut for the airbox of the Honda VFR800 V-TEC, which Honda kept in production across seventeen model years from 2002 to 2019, latterly under VFR800F bodywork, with the housing carried through unchanged. The element covers three machines altogether: this one, the pre-V-TEC VFR800 of 1998 to 2001 and the VFR800X Crossrunner of 2011 to 2019. All of them are listed in the Fitment tab.