Finished working on the car today, drained the coolant and put some new in. Bled correctly with the front raised and the car idle.

I've always noticed this car lacks all lowend power (first gear revs amd revs and the car barely moves, but second, third and fourth the car is very peppey especially in the higher rpms, which is the complete opposite of what a 5sfe feels like (used to have a 5gc with a good engine)

I disregarded it.

I also noticed that every once in a while some white smoke would come out from the exhaust. Seems more like a dense coolant burn rather than oil burn..

Last oil change I took out 3qts of oil and put 4qts in.

Today I noticed light brown creaming of the coolant and the level in the radiator got higher as I pulled the throttle open more and more...

Pretty sure the headgasket is leaking compression into the cooling system, and some coolant is sipping through to the combustion chamber...

Besides the gasket, what else is it recommended to replace? Water pump, timing belt and etc are brand new, I only need to replace the t. stat

Shoild I get new head bolts? ARP or standard? What gasket? Do I need to deck the block or head given they are not warped, regardless?

That part is normal, higher the rpms the more coolant the water pump moves. Rest of it doesn't look good though. Whenever you replace the head gasket replace the bolts too. OEM is good, only need the other if increasing the power of the engine significantly. Signs of bad head gasket include oil in the coolant and coolant in the oil. Pull out spark plugs and check them for a whitish deposit.

Yeah, last time I pulled the plugs they were a light brown (good burn), with black near the threads and a little white but there wasn't much.

if you are going to do it so it right and replace everything, OEM gasket should be metal now. i dont know of ARP studs for the 7A but the 4A-GE might have some and they might work.

Mine's a GT, not an ST.

my block and head were warped, head was cracked too

oh ok, i thought i saw ST in your first post. well its possible that 3S-GTE head studs will be long enough, i cant remember if i re-used the OEM bolt or found ARP studs.

A new set of torque-to-yield headbolts is only like $20. And the Fel-Pro headgasket set is about $120

I want to deck the head to bump up the compression a bit since it's already going to be out and I want to put some cams in as well, thought it'd be a nice power increase from stock. I've already got an EMS so I'm only missing power mods.