96 contour motor ?

my sister gave me a 96 contour with a 2.0L in it and said that the head gasket was blown.I went to get a head gasket for it and autozone said i needed to know what date it was made on, pre 3/13/96 was one gasket set and 3/14/96 and after was another. Then i found out that the motor is not the original,so i took numbers off of the block and took them to ford and they said they couldn't find out when the motor was made by those numbers and that they would need the vin #. i'm figuring that the head gasket would be the same just maybe one of the other gaskets are different, it was a felpro set.so if anyone has any info on the gasket set or any other way i could find out when the motor was made that would help out alot, thanks in advance.

i have a 97 and what i am going to wind up doing is a complete swap as you would hate to pull the head, have it inspected and the block be cracked. I guess it depends on how much white smoke and oil in the water you have. good luck as engines on car-parts.com are fair in price