Sprint Filter P08 Air Filter for Road & Track – BMW R nineT Racer (2017–2020) PM109S

Of the four R nineT variants on this element, the Racer is the one whose name sets an expectation: half fairing, clip-ons, a seat unit ending in a hump, and an owner rather more likely than most to book a circuit day. That is the setting in which a washable panel stops being a maintenance detail and turns into a convenience. Every paddock has compressed air in it somewhere. Twenty minutes between sessions is enough to lift the element out, blow it through and put it back, which is not an option a paper panel offers on any day of the year.

Key Features

• Woven polyester used dry — nothing oiled from new, nothing treated after it has been washed
• 80 µm apertures and a rated 5,050 l/m²/sec of flow, the P08 specification for road and track
• Threads from ø 22 microns; filtration happens between them, at a figure quoted separately
• Approximately twice the filtering surface of other performance elements in the original frame
• Fits the standard airbox in place of the paper panel, with no modification and no remap
• Cleaned and refitted indefinitely, warranted for two years from the date it was bought

Servicing between sessions

A dry circuit is not clean air. Rubber leaves the tyres, dust leaves the brakes, and a full grid keeps all of it moving at the height an airbox draws from. Over a long day the element takes on more than a week of ordinary road riding would give it, and with paper there are only two answers: leave it where it is, or have bought a spare in advance. The PM109S turns that into a five-minute job using equipment already on site, and the machine goes out for the next session at the intake resistance it started the morning with.

The racing medium, and who it is for

This is also the only R nineT for which Sprint Filter catalogues a racing medium in the same housing — the P08 F1-85, rated at 15,000 l/m²/sec, roughly three times the flow of the P08 through a slightly coarser 85 µm weave. A flow rating is a ceiling and not a delivery, and a road-registered boxer never comes close to asking for that ceiling; the F1-85 is there for engines that have been opened up and for machines that live on a circuit. Everywhere else the P08 is the right specification. It should be said plainly that neither of them makes a standard Racer faster: an element in a standard box is not a power part.

Care and cleaning

Blow the element through with an air line from its clean face outward and the normal service is finished. Where a track day or a wet ride home has left something the air will not move, hand-warm water and a mild detergent will do it, with a rinse until the water comes away clear. It must then dry completely in moving air, well away from heat and flame, and it is refitted dry with no dressing of any kind. The maintenance sheet is in the Downloads tab.

Fitment & Compatibility

Made for the BMW R nineT Racer built from 2017 to 2020, replacing the standard element in the unmodified airbox. This part number covers fifteen machines from the air-cooled boxer range; each appears with its model years in the Fitment tab.