Sprint Filter P08 Air Filter for Road & Track – Suzuki GSX-8S (2023–2026) SM245S

The GSX-8S is the plainest of the four machines built around this airbox: a naked roadster with the parallel twin on show and no bodywork between the rider and the weather. It is also a thoroughly electronic one: the throttle butterflies are opened by a ride-by-wire system rather than a cable, and how far they open depends on what the sensors read about the air on its way in. That bears on which element belongs in the housing, because it decides what may sit upstream of them. The Sprint Filter P08 SM245S is dry. It carries no oil film of any kind, so nothing in the intake can travel forward and settle on a sensor face.

Key Features

• No oil in the medium, so nothing can settle on the intake sensors
• Filtration to 80 microns, at 5,050 litres per square metre per second
• Twice the filtering surface of other performance filters, roughly
• Replaces the standard element where it sits — airbox unmodified, map unchanged
• Compressed air is the normal service; the element is washed and used again
• Two years of warranty, dated from purchase

Nothing oiled ahead of the sensors

The usual alternative to a dry filter is oiled cotton gauze, which traps dirt on a tacky film. That film is a consumable sitting directly upstream of the throttle bodies, dosed by whoever last serviced it — too much, and some of it ends up where it was never meant to be. On a motorcycle that decides its fuelling electronically from measured air, that is a variable worth not having. The dry weave also holds back more: Sprint Filter measured four-layer oiled cotton retaining 76.42 per cent of 100-micron test particles against 93.13 per cent for the P08.

What changes, and what does not

An element inside a standard airbox does not make a standard motorcycle noticeably stronger, and the P08 is not sold on that claim. The ducting, the throttle bodies and the calibration decide what the engine is given; the filter decides how steady that supply stays between services. A paper cartridge is at its most open on the day it goes in and closes gradually from then on. The P08 is a single layer of woven polyester spun from threads of 22 microns and upwards, flowing 5,050 litres per square metre per second across roughly twice the surface of other filters, and it is washed back to that state rather than replaced. Where the air is harder Sprint Filter weave finer — P037 at 37 microns, P14 at 14, T12 at 7 — and every step finer costs flow, the P14 passing 1,800. A trade, not a ranking.

Care and cleaning

On a road-ridden roadster the whole job is an air line: hold it to the clean side of the SM245S and blow outwards. When more is wanted, lukewarm water and a mild detergent will do it, rinsed until the water runs clear. Give the element open air until it is completely dry, away from heat and flame, and refit it dry. The maintenance sheet is in the Downloads tab.

Fitment & Compatibility

Made for the Suzuki GSX-8S, 2023 to 2026, a direct replacement in the standard airbox. The same element covers four Suzuki models in all; the complete list is in the Fitment tab.