Greetings,

My 1989 744Ti has managed to destroy it's exhaust gasket (between the manifold and cylinder head) - I hear this is a common problem.

finally got around to pulling off the heat shields and saw the gasket is toasted on cylinder #3 and leaking pretty badly... yikes! So I'll be driving my 240 until I get this worked out.

So... a few questions about this:

a) Is there a stronger gasket available? Any good solution to this common problem?
b) Is this an indication of other problems? Excessive exhaust back pressure as a root cause of the blown gasket? Or does this originate from the manifold getting too hot?

Any words of wisdom on this would be appreciated :)

-Nathan