Engine is still in the car and was running well. Son and I decided to get into the top end to refresh it since we had Champion ported iron heads and champion intake sitting on the shelf along with Steve M 62mm TB/port matched plenum and injectors. All suggestions are appreciated, and as mentioned above, we don't plan on using an abrasive pads since looks like we'll be able to remove all the old gasket materials from deck with cleaner and razor (all holes are being plugged to minimize chance of debris getting into coolant/oil channels or head bolt cavities). Taking our time to do this properly without rushing.
While doing this, we used a bore scope to check on the timing chain and discovered that it's still original and sloppy, so we just added refreshing the timing chain and cam button onto our to-do list. Will probably send out the timing cover/oil pump and cam sensor to Steve V. for R&R work prior to assembly.