fastmgalant97 if you do the swap please please take pics and do a little write-up, if not a tutorial (if you please https://www.thegalantcenter.org/styl...fault/ohmy.gif ) i already have the head and belt sitting in my closet.....
as for headstuds, i have ARPs and they're great. read the directions when installing them, and follow the OEM tightening order. can't go wrong there...
i reccomend using the OEM headgasket. why? it's decently cheap (compared to the others) and statistically speaking, it's the most succesfull gasket compared to the others (HKS, cometic, etc). during the planning stage of my 4G64T engine build i spent hours and hours reading about HKS vs cometic vs OEM vs custom copper and the OEM had the least amount of failures. tons of people swore by the HKS or cometic, but there was the small handfull of people that had failures. did they install the gasket wrong? did they forget copper spray? did they mistorque the headstuds? who knows. there's a lot of room for error even when changing your oil, let alone a headgasket job.
my OEM gasket lasted 50K miles on the stock motor, then it lasted 10K miles before i blew it at 8psi. but it's the OEM 64 gasket, it's not designed for boost, but guys still boost it anyways and it's lasted most people for years. i ran the turbo for another 12K miles before pulling it, and i've put 5K miles on it since with the n/a motor...still strong. and you're not going to be running any boost.....yet