It appears i have a blown HG. (water coming out the back of the engine and oil in Cylinder #1) Compression was fine at 150PSI across the board.

my questions are as fallows:

I obviously should do belt and anything else while i have the head off. any good timing kits out there you recommend? my times was just done 15k miles ago, but oh well.

engine had APR head studs put on it when the head was off 15k miles ago. Can those be reused or should they be replaced? (my other car says studs should be replaced when head removed so i question this car on that too)

I assume OEM HG is still the best option for OEM bottom end?

 

I would definitely do a better stud like an H11 or L19 so you can reuse them.

 

Belt does not have to be replaced, you can zip tye the sprokets to the belt and remove from cams, assuming you replaced the belt 15K ago. New head studs for sure and a head up gasket kit.

 

Stock head gasket is very good. I torqued my arp's to 110 ft/lbs and never had an issue.

 

The studs can be reused IF and only IF they were installed as per ARP's instructions and NOT overtorqued. If a stud yields even slightly from overtorquing, it's ruined, and will often cause a HG failure.

In no case should you do this:

... which aims to resolve a problem that doesn't exist by creating another, worse problem.

 

Maperformance sells a good timing belt kit

 

If you over torque your studs the head will normally develop small pressure cracks on the nut surface.