Sprint Filter P08 F1-85 Air Filter for Racing – Yamaha MT-09 / SP (2021–2023) SM212S F1-85

An MT-09 is bought partly for the noise it makes when the throttle opens, and the SP does nothing to talk anybody out of that. It is also why a racing air filter ends up in the basket. So, first: induction sound is shaped by the airbox, the ducting and the intake funnels, not by the sheet of medium inside them. Swapping that sheet inside a sealed series housing changes what the engine drinks, not what it sings. The Sprint Filter SM212S F1-85 is a decision about air, and the one element in this range that gives something back to get it.

Key Features

• P08 F1-85 competition polyester, run dry: 85 microns of filtration at 15,000 litres per square metre per second
• Coarser than the standard P08 at 80 microns — the extra flow is paid for out of retention
• No oil at any point, so nothing can lift off the weave and settle on the intake sensors
• Roughly twice the medium area a conventional performance element puts in front of the air
• Goes into the 2021–2023 housing as it stands: no cutting, no adapters, no fuelling change
• Cleaned and refitted instead of bought again, under a guarantee that runs two years

What a filter can and cannot be felt doing

Intake parts get judged by ear and by the seat of the trousers, the two least reliable instruments there are. An element dropped into a standard airbox does not make a standard CP3 triple faster, whatever flow figure stands beside it, and no description of this part should imply otherwise. What is real is duller: an intake resistance that starts low and can be brought back to that same figure with an air line, service after service. Nothing downstream of the airbox changes, so the fuelling stays as it is.

When 85 microns is the right way round

A filtration rating of 85 microns where the standard element sits at 80 is a step backwards, and the only step of its kind in this range. It exists because 15,000 litres per square metre per second is an enormous capacity, specified for engines asked for everything they have, in air with very little in it: swept tarmac, a closed course, a race weekend. An MT-09 or MT-09 SP on public roads meets brake dust, tyre particles and grit at every throttle opening and calls on nothing like that rate. It is also by far the dearest way to fill this airbox, so the question is better settled before ordering than after.

Care and cleaning

There is no oil to apply and no dose to get wrong. Most services are an air line held to the clean face and worked outwards, so what the medium caught leaves the way it arrived. After a hard season, lukewarm water and a mild detergent finish the job, rinsed until the run-off stays clear. The SM212S F1-85 then dries in open air and in its own time, never over heat and never near a flame, and goes back in only once it is dry through. The maintenance sheet is under the Downloads tab.

Fitment & Compatibility

Made for the Yamaha MT-09 and MT-09 SP of 2021 to 2023. Three machines built around this airbox share this element, the Tracer 9 / GT and the XSR 900 being the other two; the complete list is in the Fitment tab.