Hey all,

I'm in the process of rebuilding my VE, and come to find out that Nissan does not carry our head gaskets anymore (according to Courtesy). They had one in stock (left side) and could not locate any more. So, I was forced to look at aftermarket options for the right side.

I was (and still am) somewhat leery about using cheaper aftermarket parts for such a critical component. I found a couple on Amazon that seemed to be decent and, rather than roll the dice with one, I bought both (they were cheap enough ) thinking I will compare the two and use the best quality one. The two brands to compare are Beck/Arnley and Nippon Reinz. The Beck/Arnley was $46 and the Nippon was $17 OEM I believe ran from $40 to $60, depending on the dealership.

I took a few pictures of each gasket to try and compare the quality, and here are the results. This comparison is between Nissan OEM, Nippon Reinz, and Beck Arnley. In each set of photos, the OEM is on top, NR in the middle, and B/A on the bottom.

First, the overall pictures:




Next, close-up of some galley seals:

 

ID of cylinder bore:




Thickness measurements:

 

A few final pictures of the stamps on the Nippon Reinz (top) and Beck/Arnley (bottom):



Interesting, as it looks like the NR gasket is a repackaged OEM one. The measurements and quality all seemed to be very much closer to the OEM than the B/A gasket.

Here is another pic of the B/A gasket, noting the lack of the rubber sealing material around most of the galleys:

 

Like you mentioned, the Nippon looks more like the oem with rubber seals where the B/E doesn't. Also it looks like the B/E is slightly thicker than the other two, which is not a desirable trait in a head gasket. I would recommend the Nippon by far.

 

Pretty interesting. When I first saw you mention the Nippon name I was thinking to myself that Nippon is a supplier to many of the Japanese OEM's. Nippon and Ishino both supply the OE gaskets for Hondas and you can save money by going straight Nippon or Ishino on the Honda rather than the dealer, so it makes sense the Nippon appears to be OE for the Nissan. Looks like your Nippon gasket even has the Nissan logo right on it too?

I wonder if the OEM head gaskets are really obsolete or if that's just Courtesy being Courtesy. I stopped using them years ago because their prices are high and I never trusted them when they claimed parts were obsolete that I was able to get fairly easily elsewhere. Nowadays I exclusively use nissanpartszone.com or nissanpartsasap.com, they are both much cheaper than Courtesy and don't have Courtesy's inflated shipping charges. Thankfully I do already have a set of Nissan head gaskets I've been holding onto for years, and my Jasper VE appears to have been with OEM gaskets and seals as best I can tell. Maybe I'll go ahead and grab the Nippon ones to protect against future obsolescence just in case, especially at that price!

How in depth of a rebuild are you doing?

 

I just looked up the part number on my set of Nissan goodies that came with my Jasper rebuild. It's Nissan # 10101-7E125, which is over $400+ and does include the head gaskets. Pretty cool. This makes me even more confident Jasper used the OE gaskets on my engine. I can't imagine they would buy the complete Nissan gasket set then use some aftermarket stuff internally yet give me all the leftover gaskets from the Nissan kit.

 

They might still be available OE. I went to a local Nissan dealer before going to Courtesy, and the gaskets seemed to be available. However, they quoted me at around $80 per head gasket, if I remember correctly. Wayyy too much. If Nippons are actually the OE-made gasket, then $17 is well worth it!

I'm rebuilding with ARP head studs (Z32 kit) and having a mild port/polish and valve job done on the heads, along with a ceramic combustion chamber coating from EP Racing. I'm not sure if my head gaskets were truly bad, but I was getting a positive reading of combustion gas in my coolant (no smoke or oil mixing though). Could be because I made the mistake on my last rebuild of re-using the head bolts.

 

I work at nissan dealer here outside orlando fl . Im doing a turbo build on my ve30de and you can only get left one theres one dealer i called that supposedly had 15 right side but they were open sets the guy said from over 15 years ago and doesnt trust them doesnt know y they still have them.

 

Just because they're open doesn't mean anything is wrong with them? You should get some sent into your dealership and take a look at them. Unless they are physically gouged up or something I can't see how they would be bad simply from being open all these years

 

When i talked to him on the phone he was telling me that i wouldnt want them some kind of weird way he made out that since they were all open box that there was no part numbers to match but in nissans part system they had them he seemed kinda **** i even had my parts guy try to see but he got same response

 

Im gonna go with oem and nippon reinze have 2 lefts i orderd from advance and oem right

 

Here's an interesting update to this. Years ago I bought some OEM gaskets/seals from a member who was leaving 3rd gen scene, I can't even remember who it was offhand.

Anyway, so I have both OEM head gaskets and then one random Beck/Arnley head gasket from that old member. Seeing as I'm about to use the OEM set on my build I figured I want to stock up again to have an OEM set or two for future use and tonight decided to check out my Beck/Arnley and OEM's.

To my (happy) surprise, my Beck/Arnley is actually an OEM unit (it even says made in Japan). Pretty cool. Check it out:



Nissan logo on my Beck/Arnley:



OEM vs Beck/Arnley seal comparison: