Sprint Filter P08 Air Filter for Road & Track – Yamaha MT-09 / SP (2021–2023) SM212S

Three different motorcycles have worn the MT-09 badge, and the airbox changed underneath while the name stayed put. That makes the model name a poor way to order an air filter and the model year a very good one. The Sprint Filter SM212S is the P08 element for the middle CP3 generation, the bikes registered from 2021 to 2023, the SP included. It is dry woven polyester shaped to the housing Yamaha fitted to those machines, and it is cleaned rather than bought again.

Key Features

• A single dry layer of woven polyester, spun from threads measuring 22 microns across and upwards
• Filtration rated at 80 microns with an airflow figure of 5,050 litres per square metre per second
• Roughly twice the media area of a typical performance filter
• Runs dry for its whole life, so no oil film can reach the throttle bodies or the intake sensor
• Drops into the unmodified 2021–2023 airbox; the mapping and the type approval stay as Yamaha left them
• Serviced with a line of air instead of a purchase, and covered for two years from the day of sale

Order by year, not by badge

Parts finders, forum threads and classified adverts rarely separate one MT-09 generation from the next, which is how the wrong element ends up on a bench. The registration document settles it in seconds. A first registration between 2021 and 2023 puts your MT-09 or MT-09 SP on the middle generation, and that generation takes SM212S. The SP shares the airbox with the standard bike, since it differs in suspension, brakes and finish rather than induction, so one part number serves both.

Superseded, and nowhere near old

A bike of this age has been replaced in the showroom while most of its working life is still ahead of it. It is also where servicing stops belonging to a dealer schedule and starts belonging to the owner, for the next decade. Paper keeps the arrangement open ended: an interval falls due, an element is bought, the old one is binned, and the loop repeats for as long as the bike is yours. This element is designed to outlast the motorcycle, so what repeats is only the labour. It will not add power, because no drop-in filter makes a standard triple quicker and any text claiming so is describing something else. What it holds is a low intake restriction that returns to the same starting figure after every clean.

Care and cleaning

Nothing is ever applied to an SM212S, which keeps the routine short. Compressed air does most of the work, directed outwards from the clean face so dirt leaves the way it arrived. Warm water with a little mild detergent finishes the job when air alone falls short, rinsed until it runs clear. The element then wants open air until it is dry the whole way through; heat guns and naked flames destroy the weave, and it goes back in dry. The care sheet sits in the Downloads tab.

Fitment & Compatibility

Made for the Yamaha MT-09 and MT-09 SP, model years 2021 to 2023. Three machines share this airbox and therefore this element, the Tracer 9 / GT and the XSR 900 alongside the MT-09; the full list is in the Fitment tab.