Recently bought a 1994 Land Rover Discovery and was doing a head gasket job and noticed that the head gasket that I bought isn't quite the same as the head gasket that came off of the engine.

In the picture, notice that there's 4 large bolt holes on the top of the new head gasket (I assume you can tell which one is new ). Also, the new head gasket is metal and the old one was a composite.

Despite the 4 extra bolt holes, all the other bolts line right up.

 

There is a stamped serial number on your block where the dipstick is located and secured, what are the numbers/letters?

 

The truck is at my shop but it's manufacture date was March of 1994, and I'm in the 'States.

What I've surmised from reading on the forums is the old (pre 94?) engines used 14 head bolts and the newer engines only used 10.

The interesting thing is that there are 4 holes for the bolts on the block but no holes on the head, which leads me to suspect the heads have been replaced.

At any rate, which head gasket should I used? I requested one from an import parts shop and this is the one they gave me.

 

Bingo! That's why I asked what the block number is, that determines which type of hg. If it has a "B" suffix it uses the composite, without "B" suffix it uses the tin. It's not a deal breaker if it's reversed because the tin hg's will raise the compression and obviously the opposite is true for the composites, compression will be lowered. This is true only if you have the original heads for either block. The combustion chamber CC is differnt between heads hence the hg type matters.

It sounds like you have a later set of heads on the block, they only have the 10 bolt pattern whereas yours should be the 14 bolt. That also doesn't play these days as many are using only 10 bolts because the outer 4 really don't do squat.