Sprint Filter P08 F1-85 Air Filter for Racing – Kawasaki Versys 650 (2015–2026) PM163S F1-85

A Versys 650 is bought to go somewhere. Which is why this listing opens with a caution rather than a promise. The Sprint Filter P08 F1-85 is a racing medium — 85 microns and 15,000 l/m²/sec, against 80 microns and 5,050 l/m²/sec for the standard P08 — and touring is the one use where its bargain makes no sense. The extra flow answers a question a loaded 650 twin never asks. The coarser weave answers one it asks on every gravel kilometre, and answers it badly.

Key Features

• An 85 micron weave in dry polyester, racing specification, rated at 15,000 l/m²/sec
• That is roughly three times the rated flow of the standard P08, paid for with five microns of filtration
• Dry from end to end and never oiled — nothing can travel downstream onto the air sensor
• The filtering surface is around twice that of other performance filters
• No modification and no remapping: the standard airbox takes it as it is
• Cleaned with compressed air and reused; two years of warranty from purchase

Choose the medium by the map, not by the catalogue

Sprint Filter's media are not a ladder with a best rung at the top. They are a line with a trade running along it: the finer the weave, the more it holds back and the less it flows. Laid over a touring route, that line reads plainly. Sealed roads in dry weather are the standard P08's ground, at 80 microns and 5,050 l/m²/sec. A week of rain is what the water-repellent P037 exists for, at 37 microns and 4,500. Gravel, farm tracks and the dust behind a truck belong to the P14 at 14 microns and 1,800 l/m²/sec, and genuine desert to the T12 at 7 microns and 560. The F1-85 is not one of them — it sits at the far end of flow, which on a fully loaded Versys is the one currency nobody is short of.

What the airbox meets on a long journey

A touring bike does not carry its own air. It takes whatever the route gives it — pollen in May, harvest dust in August, wet grit for a week in the mountains — and the element accumulates all of it without any of it showing on the odometer. Two Versys 650s of the same age and mileage can be at completely different points of their filter life. That is the argument for a washable polyester element in general, whichever medium you pick: an element you can blow clean with a borrowed air line is one you actually check. Take that benefit in the medium that matches your roads.

Care and cleaning

Cleaning the PM163S F1-85 is dry work: compressed air from the clean side, directed outwards. Where a wash is needed, use lukewarm water with a mild detergent and rinse until the water runs clear; the element then dries fully in open air — never with heat, never over a flame — and is refitted dry. Nothing is oiled at any stage. The maintenance sheet is in the Downloads tab.

Fitment & Compatibility

Made for the Kawasaki Versys 650, 2015 to 2026. The same element covers five machines built around this airbox — Ninja, Z650, Z650RS, Versys and Vulcan; the full list is in the Fitment tab. For touring we point you at the standard P08 first, and at the P14 where the route leaves the tarmac.