Gasket set interchange question...

[Whale]

I found a (Elring) gasket set on Ebay for a 83 through 85 318. Will that fit on my 74 tii with a E-12 head?

The Beck Arnley gasket set number is...

11 12 1 734 142.

Also, is this a "cutting ring" style head gasket. I was told by my machine shop that my head was just within tolerances and that any further machine work might render my head useless. I've heard that cutting ring gaskets require the head to be resurfaced after each removal.

Any help would be appreciated.

[Rigmaster]

That part number is a BMW part number:

http://www.realoem.com/bmw/partxref.do?part=11121734142&showus=on&showeur=&details=1

It's for M10 318i's, so the head gasket will work on your car, but you'll get a bunch of others in that set that you don't need, and will need some that are not in the set.

It's not a cutting ring headgasket- that would be a tii headgasket.

Bret.

[Whale]

So what you're saying then is that Tii's really don't need the cutting ring gaskets even though the compression is higher (and might be even higher for me since my head has been machined down to the bare minimum tolerance)?

Sorry for the dumb question. I just don't want to go through all the trouble and expense only to find out a F'd up during the planning stages.

[Rigmaster]

So what you're saying then is that Tii's really don't need the cutting ring gaskets even though the compression is higher (and might be even higher for me since my head has been machined down to the bare minimum tolerance)?

Sorry for the dumb question. I just don't want to go through all the trouble and expense only to find out a F'd up during the planning stages.

Well, I'm not gonna say that, but it's probably true.

You said you didn't want to use a cutting ring head gasket because your head had been milled down close to minimum thickness. BMW installed the cutting ring HG on tii's to help cut down on problems with blown HG's due to the higher compression.

It's a gamble, choose your poison- having to mill down the head everytime you change the head gasket when using a cutting ring gasket, or risking the possibility of a blown headgasket using a non-cutting ring gasket.

I've heard that you can use the E30M3 (S14) HG with some mods- it should be able to stand up to tii compression......

Bret.