Sprint Filter P08 Air Filter for Road & Track – Honda NC700S / NC700X (2012–2017) PM181S

The NC700S and X are now old enough that most of them are on their second or third owner, and the ones worth buying are the ones with a folder. Not a full dealer history necessarily — these were bought as sensible transport and a lot of them were maintained by the person riding them — but a record: what was done, when, at what mileage. An air filter is a small line in that record, and it is one of the few that can be written honestly by the owner rather than the invoice. The Sprint Filter P08 PM181S is a dry polyester element that gets cleaned and refitted, so what goes in the folder is a date and a service, not a receipt for a part that will need buying again.

Key Features

• Unoiled polyester, dry in service, with nothing that can be carried downstream onto throttle bodies or sensors
• Twice the filtering area of other performance elements, or close to it
• Not pressed from pulp but woven: polyester thread from ø 22 microns at a calibrated aperture
• A direct replacement in the standard airbox, needing no modification and no remap
• Compressed air is the normal service, and what comes out is what goes back in
• Warranted for two years from the date of purchase

A used 670 twin and the things nobody can prove

Most of what an inspection tells you about a used NC700 is visible: chain, discs, fork seals, the state of the switchgear. The intake is not. A paper element that has been in place for four years looks broadly like one that has been in place for one, and the difference between them is real but invisible, and it never announces itself with a fault code or a noise. Fitting a washable element ends that particular uncertainty for good. It is inspected at every service because inspecting it is the service, and its condition is a thing you have seen rather than a thing you have assumed.

What the second owner inherits

Sprint Filter designs the P08 to last the life of the motorcycle, which on a bike of this kind means it will outlast the person who bought it. That is a description of the timescale rather than a slogan: an NC700 bought new in 2012 has already had a decade of owners, and a filter fitted at any point in it is still the filter in it. The next owner inherits a part that needs cleaning rather than one that needs sourcing — and on a model long out of the showrooms, the second of those costs an afternoon.

Care and cleaning

The service that goes in the folder is a short one: compressed air from the clean side, blown outwards, and the element refitted dry. Once a winter or a dusty summer has earned it, wash it in lukewarm water with a mild detergent and rinse until the water runs clear, then leave it in open air until it is completely dry — heat and flames are never part of it, and neither is oil. The Sprint Filter maintenance sheet is in the Downloads tab.

Fitment & Compatibility

Made for the Honda NC700S and NC700 X from 2012 to 2017. The same PM181S element covers five machines across the NC parallel-twin platform; the complete list is in the Fitment tab.