Sprint Filter P08 Air Filter for Road & Track – KTM RC 390 (2014–2018) PM145S

Very few first-generation RC 390s are still standard. A full system, a fuelling module, sometimes a different sprocket — this was the affordable faired A2 bike, and affordable faired bikes get modified. That is worth knowing before choosing an air filter, because most intake products sold for this machine add another variable to a motorcycle that already carries two or three. The Sprint Filter P08 does not. It stays inside the original box, keeps the original intake path, and leaves whatever map the bike is running exactly as valid as it was.

Key Features

• Fuelling-neutral: standard airbox, standard aperture, no remap called for
• Dry woven polyester at 80 µm and 5,050 l/m²/sec, never oiled
• About twice as much cloth in the same box as a typical performance element carries
• Returns to a known, repeatable condition every time it is cleaned
• Threads starting at ø 22 micrometres, filtering by weave rather than by a film of adhesive
• Reusable for the life of the bike; the warranty runs two years from purchase

One less variable

An open filter on the end of a rubber elbow changes the pressure the injection was calibrated against, changes the temperature of the air being drawn in, and changes what the bike sounds like at a roadside check. If the machine has already been mapped around an exhaust, all of that has to be revisited. An element occupying the same space as the paper panel it replaces changes none of it, which is why it is the one intake part you can fit to a modified RC 390 on a weekday evening and then stop thinking about.

Being honest about the gain

There is no power claim here. On a standard bike a replacement element is not felt, and on a modified one it is not the thing that made the difference. The case for it is duller than that: an intake restriction that begins lower than the paper panel's and, because the polyester is washed rather than consumed, does not drift upward between services. On a machine whose owner is already chasing consistency out of tyres and fuelling, having one fewer component quietly changing is the whole point.

Care and cleaning

Take it out, put an air line on the clean side and work outward — after an ordinary season that is the entire service. Heavier deposits come off with hand-warm water and a mild detergent, rinsed through until the water clears. Then it dries in air and only in air: heat damages the weave, and a damp element belongs nowhere near the intake. Sprint Filter's sheet for the PM145S is in the Downloads tab.

Fitment & Compatibility

The P08 for the KTM RC 390, 2014 to 2018. The 2022-on RC 390 is a different machine with a different element, so the year decides: nine bikes are covered here, all of them from KTM's first small-capacity generation.