Sprint Filter T12 Air Filter for Off-Road & Extreme – Triumph Tiger Explorer XC/ XC SE 1215 (2011–2016) PM202T12

The XC and XC SE were the versions Triumph built for riders who intended to leave the tarmac: spoked wheels, protection, the equipment that states where a bike is meant to go. What that intention costs the engine is usually pictured as a matter of speed, and it is really a matter of time. A heavy travel enduro moves slowly on a loose piste, and slowly is precisely how long you stay inside the dust the rider ahead of you left hanging in the air. The Sprint Filter T12 — a dry polyester special non-woven filtering to 7 microns at a rated 560 l/m²/sec — is aimed at that situation and at very little else.

Key Features

• A dry polyester special non-woven filtering to 7 microns — the finest of the Sprint Filter media
• Its 560 l/m²/sec rating belongs to extreme conditions, off-road use and desert dust
• There is no oil anywhere in the system, so no film reaches the air sensor or the throttle bodies
• It fits the unmodified standard airbox directly, and no remap is required
• Designed to last the life of the motorcycle, washable and reusable in the meantime
• Two years of warranty, beginning at the date of purchase

Time in the plume, not speed over the ground

A group on a gravel road leaves a column of suspended dust that a fast rider passes through and a slow one lives inside. On a big loaded Explorer picking a line through ruts the throttle is open, the revs are low and the pace is close to walking — an hour of that is an hour of unusually dirty air drawn through the airbox while the odometer barely moves. It is why a filter interval written in kilometres describes the wrong quantity. The PM202T12 answers exposure rather than distance, and because it is washable you can check it the evening after the ride, not the month the service book nominates.

What the fine medium costs

Finer weave means more retention and less flow. That is the whole rule and it applies here as much as anywhere: the P08 filters at 80 microns with a rated 5,050 l/m²/sec, the P037 at 37 microns and 4,500, the P14 at 14 microns and 1,800, this element at 7 and 560. If the XC in your garage has in truth never been down a piste, the fine medium is the wrong purchase and the P08 is the right one. And in no version of this does an element in the standard airbox make a stock 1200 triple noticeably stronger — what it changes is what gets past it, and how much of the restriction you can undo with an air line.

Care and cleaning

Wherever the bike stands is where this can be done: compressed air on the clean side, directed outwards, is the everyday service. The rest is a wash in lukewarm water with a mild detergent, rinsed until the water runs clear, and then a full dry in open air. Heat and flame never dry it, and it is always refitted dry. No point in the procedure involves oil. The Downloads tab holds the maintenance sheet.

Fitment & Compatibility

Made for the Triumph Tiger Explorer XC and XC SE listed as 1215 and built from 2011 to 2016. The same element covers six Tiger Explorer listings in all, through to the last 1200s of 2022; the full list is in the Fitment tab.