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triumlh t300 speed triple

Fresh air for the Speed Triple

Our bikes: 1996 Triumph T300 Speed Triple

We've been putting it off too long – it's time to give this thing some fresh air

(by Guy 'Guido' Allen, Feb 2024)

Do you have any jobs in the shed for which you develop a blind spot? For me it's changing the airfilter on a T300 series Triumph, of which I own three: a Speed Triple, Super III and Daytona 1200.

On this series, changing the filter means changing the entire airbox – it's sold as a replaceable part for around Au$150. That's the old shown with the new, above.

It's part of a larger construction (above) that includes a snorkel and plenum chamber on each side.

Getting in there means removing the seat, the fuel tank (empty it first – it's huge) and the rear bodywork. That's all quite quick and easy to do.

Removing the airbox is fiddly, as you have to detach the snorkels and plenums, loosen off the box and move it rearward, then drop the carburetors to get enough wiggle room to remove the box.

It's a pain, which is why people tend to avoid it. In theory, you're meant to do this every 40,000km (24,000 miles) though I suspect many folk like me studiously avoid it for much longer. Unfortunately, the last time this thing was undressed I simply didn't have a replacement floating around.

What finally spurred me into action was the Speed Triple has been running a little weird, with the odd hesitation under acceleration. It's had quite a lot of service work done over time, including fresh plugs, a thorough carburetor clean-out and refresh, new fuel tap and so-on.

I began to suspect the long-ignored airfilter and was right. Inside were random bits of foam, most of which were no longer attached to the appropriate frame. Oh dear. That means the bike has probably been running on a part-rubber diet.

Since the spark plugs are such a bugger to get to, we took the opportunity to reef them out for a quick clean.

My guess is the filter hadn't been changed for many years, which is also the situation with my Daytona 1200 and the Super III – they're next! (In both cases, they are relatively low-milers. However the filters will have timed out.)

And the result? Well it seems to be a happier motorcycle, so that will do.

People have of course come up with work-arounds on buying a new airbox, including cracking open and performing some surgery on an old one so you can replace just the filter material and not the entire unit.

It's possible to replace the box entirely with something more simple such as pod filters, though that will require a proper retune preferably with the aid of a dyno. While the factory system seems awfully complex, it's also quite effective.

A useful source of info is David Clarke's Hinckley Triumph T300 workshop companion, which has a chapter on this very topic. You can find it online.

Otherwise, the auld dear has been a joy. With just under 72,000km on the odo, it still feels fresh (now it's off the rubber diet!) in its own very 1990s way. The triple-cylinder engine has a distinctive growl and feel, while the chassis does a respectable job of keeping it pointing in the right direction.

More than anything else, it does have something that qualifies as character, so even a short squirt on the thing will raise a grin.

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