I finally had to replace my headgasket this week, after a bunch of stop-gap measures to make the FelPro live. Its final failure point was in cylinder number two, it ovaled the fire ring all the way over to the coolant passages by the intake:





Not too bad for a year of abuse, I guess. I'm hoping the OEM Mitsu gasket won't give me any trouble.

My philosophy is, "if it breaks, replace the broken parts (or readily accessible ones) with aftermarket parts." In your instance, I'd get a set of cam gears, springs and retainers, and some Crower Stage 3 Cams while I was at it. Of course that may be why mine has been sitting for about three years.

I don't really want a piece, the Spybird has picked up quite a few modifications since the last time, it'd be a slaughter

I thought about it, but cams pretty much require an aftermarket intake manifold to make any real extra power up top, and things start to look even pricier. If I was going to do it, I'd go the low-buck method of Crower Springs, FFWD Stage 2 cams, and a Dejon Tool intake manifold, and whatever adjustable cam gears.

Interesting choice on the intake manifold. I'd never heard of it before but I did find some pictures of it on their website. I'd be curious to see what the inside looks like (since they never give you a shot of the throttle opening bore) and see if it really looks just like a big box on the inside as well. Interesting though.....