Sprint Filter T12 Air Filter for Off-Road & Extreme – Honda CRF300L (2021–2026) PM255ST12

The T12 was drawn up for the dirtiest air a motorcycle engine is ever asked to breathe: open off-road, desert stages, everything filed under extreme conditions. Putting it on a road-legal 300 looks like a category error until you notice that the medium is named after the air, not after the registration document. A CRF300L ridden the way it was built to be ridden — out of town on tarmac, then an afternoon of forest track and gravel — takes in the same suspended mineral dust as a machine with a race number, only more slowly. The Sprint Filter PM255ST12 filters that air to 7 microns with a dry polyester special non-woven rated at 560 l/m²/sec.

Key Features

• 7 microns of retention from a dry polyester special non-woven made for extreme dust
• Rated at 560 l/m²/sec: fine media hold back more and pass less, and this is the finest one
• Goes into the standard airbox in place of the original element: no adaptation, no remapping
• There is no oiling step at any point, so nothing can migrate downstream from the element
• Cleaned and refitted rather than thrown away
• Sprint Filter stands behind the element for two years after you buy it

The medium is named after the air, not the licence plate

Type approval, the emissions calibration and the service schedule are all written around road use, and none of it reaches the intake tract. What arrives at the element is decided by the ground the front wheel is on: a registered dual-sport on a dry gravel road breathes the same air as an unregistered one. Because the PM255ST12 replaces the series element inside the standard airbox rather than the airbox itself, a finer medium leaves the machine's legal status, intake geometry and mapping exactly as they were. All that changes is what stays outside the engine.

What you give up, and when it is worth it

Retention and flow pull against each other, so this is a trade rather than a ranking. The P08 filters at 80 microns and flows 5,050 l/m²/sec, the P14 at 14 microns and 1,800, the T12 at 7 microns and 560. A single-cylinder 300 at legal road speeds works well below the capacity its airbox was designed around, which is why the finest medium is affordable here at all: the reserve it consumes is called on at full load, not on the way to work. Where it stops being worth it is a CRF300L that lives mostly on sealed roads and motorway stages: there the dust load never justifies the flow given away, and the P08 is the better-balanced choice.

Care and cleaning

Direct compressed air at the clean face of the element and work outwards until it is clear. For a heavier load, lukewarm water and a mild detergent are enough; rinse until the water runs clear and let it dry fully in open air, never with heat or a flame. Refit it dry and untreated — oil has no place on this medium. The element is designed to last the life of the motorcycle, and the maintenance sheet is filed in the Downloads tab.

Fitment & Compatibility

Made for the Honda CRF300L, model years 2021 to 2026. One element covers three machines in this family; the complete list is in the Fitment tab.