I acquired a complete F54 block P79 1983 280zx motor.

It did have a blown head gasket and here is my question.

After removing the top end and looking at the existing head gasket

and the coolant passageways. It seems to me that the wrong head gasket might have been used by previous owner or mechanic.

Some of the openings for coolant flow were blocked off by this head gasket.

Is this normal? I'll post a picture soon but on the gasket itself you can see where coolant was going to the gasket but not through to the other side.

Has anyone else noticed this?

Here's how it should look, FWIW

Yes I noticed it on my P-79 Felpro head gasket and ordered the stock Nissan gasket. They each covered the exact same amount of the water passages.....therefore that must have been in the engineer's design. I believe the one in the picture above is a Felpro which overlays the stock gasket perfectly.