joe3180

OK.... this is the story. A few months back I had a small fire under the hood and im just now getting around to replacing all the damaged parts. I have just about everything replaced and getting ready now to work on it. I dont know what the cause of the fire was exactly but I have some ideas. I will be taking the head off to check everything out and I have not done this before...at least not on this engine. I have some exp doing it but honestly not that much....I got to learn sometime though. Some questions I have are:

When I get the head off I will replace the head gasket and have the head decked. Will a stock head gasket be ok after being decked? I want to keep the comp ratio stock and I just dont know the answer. I tried to look around but all I could find were people saying replace with 1.1 metal HG but it didnt really answer what I wanted to know.

What all will be removed when I do this? Such as the oil pump etc...

What all should be replaced? I already have planned to replace the head gasket, head bolts (will be replaced with ARP studs), intake manifold gasket and im sure im forgetting something obvious but please let me know.
All internals will be kept stock but will be replaced if suggested. I just want this to work with no new issues so what's another $500+ or whatever compared to what I spent already....lol. I want to do it right the first time and not have to look at the internals again for a good while

What special tools will I need?

Lets say I want to check if the piston rings are good....a leak down test should tell me...right? Is there another way to check?

I just hate to get started and be surprised with something that take hours if not days or weeks longer for me to fix...but it always happens.

If someone from So Cal East Los Angeles County reads this.... Any good machine shops I can go to for the work? If I have to take the pistons out I will be balancing the engine too and I really want a shop that will go the extra step and balance everything correctly. Its a shame I dont have access to a machine shop since I moved Not that I balanced an engine before but I COULD have. Oh well.

At the end of the day I'm just looking for a car the runs good and is fun to drive...I'm not trying to make a beast. I drove around all stock with this engine the past 7 years and ive been happy. So you know my goal.

All feedback is greatly appreciated. I am information gathering atm so work will start sometime next month. Thank you in advance.

S13 redtop SR20det...all stock internals...not so stock everything else. I don't think u need to know my whole setup but if something makes a differance LMK.