Honda CBR 1000RR BMC Race Filters

November 2005

You have to be careful when messing around with the air box and air filters on most modern sport bikes.  I've actually been witness to several bikes losing power in back to back dyno runs when changing out air filters or making other air box modifications.  Honda sport bikes in particular seem to be very picky regarding these types of changes.  I presume this has to do with turbulence or air box pressure.  After hearing others having positive results using BMC Race filters in this particular machine, I decided to give them a try and test them for myself. 

The BMC Race filters I purchased were P/N FM374/16 RACE.  The first thing I noticed was how light these filters are.  Weighing them on a very precise digital scale showed they weighed in at a mere 0.56 lbs total for both filters.  This is a 58% weight savings over the stock filters which weigh 1.32 lbs total for both filters.  The BMCs come with gaskets that are applied to the opened end of the filters to insure a good seal to the intake ducts.  The gasket is adhesive backed so simply pop the center out of this gasket and put the gasket ring on the filter.  You'll also want to inspect your new filters to make sure there is no debris caught in the screen or filter media prior to installing.

Installing the BMC filters is a fairly simple task.  You'll need to remove the rider's seat (2 x 5mm hex head button bolts) and tank cover (6 x 5mm hex head button bolts).  Next, remove the two 5mm hex head bolts on the sides of the tank, raise the tank, and support it.  Remove the 6 phillips head screws holding the upper air box cover in place.  Lay the upper air box cover back being careful with the attached wiring, and remove the stock filters.  You'll notice the stock filters are much heavier.  Also notice the air restrictor placed over the stock filter opening.  I'm told this is yet ANOTHER EPA noise emission device which robs the bike of power.  Finally, drop the new BMC filters into the air box being sure they're centered over the air box intake openings.  Button the bike up and you're all set.  One thing to note when buttoning up the bike is the drain tube coming from the tank.  This tube can be tricky to re-route and connect back to the lower half ofr the tube by the left rear set.  Be sure to get this re-connected and avoid kinking the tube.

I'm rarely satisfied by others' comments on products and choose to instead test them personally so that the information I write is true and accurate.  To test these BMC Race filters, I rode with them in the bike for about 1800 miles to be sure they were good and broken in to avoid any "new filter" irregularity during testing.  I then took the bike to my local dyno operator with the stock filters in the air box and did 3 consecutive runs.  The best of the three netted 149.27HP with 77.07 ft/lbs of torque.  I then took the stock filters out and put in the BMC Race filters and did 3 more dyno runs.  The filter swap was performed as the bike still sat on the dyno, so these tests were performed the same day with the same bike on the same dyno mere minutes apart.  The best of the three runs with the BMC Race filters netted 151.31HP and 78.34 ft/lbs of torque for a gain of 2.04HP and 1.27 ft/lbs of torque.  The only change to the bike was the filters between these two runs.  The bike does have an Arata titanium slip on, the flapper mod, and of course the PAIR system was blocked.  I loaded a zero map in my PCIII USB to insure that did not skew the results.  Notice from the graph below that the power increase begins at about 6600 RPMs and continues to build through redline.  A 2.04HP gain and a weight savings of nearly a pound make these filters a pretty good deal for the price, not to mention you can wash and re-use them using BMCs recharge kit.

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-Speedy

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