2.3 7a engine head restoration

[Kupnu4]

Hi everyone!
I have this 7a head that's been laying around in garage for couple of years decided to rebuild it and have it on my car. I have a couple of questions that i need help with, any advice will be appriciated.
Here i have some pictures, and there are couple of areas i am conserned about.
I have read some info about skimming these heads and people are arguing between yes and no, some say these heads do not need to be skimmed if there's no cracks, and if you would skim it, you would take off some surface hardened layer of metal so if you do it, it will only make things worst..
My idea is: clean the head up, new uprated valves, if posible uprated springs(i found them to be pretty expensive) and i dont know wether to have a turbo in future as it would only kill the car. I just thought maybe some good valves, springs and lightweight tappets would open up this engine a little. I dont think it needs porting as looks pretty smooth from factory. I also have lightened and balanced flywheel but i dont think it will give any benefits, but i will try it anyway just to see what will be the difference, as many people arguing about this too..
So is it really worth it, and what would be an idea of how and with what to clean this thing, as to me it looks pretty bad.
Please forgive if these questions seem dumb to you, but i dont have much experience doing these kind of things.
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[PRY4SNO]

If the head isn't flat/square, it will need to be skimmed for a proper head gasket seal.

Don't use the lightweight lifters/tappets as they have been found to fail in high hp applications.

Not sure why a turbo would kill the car?

These motors (in NA form) are only good for 200 hp max, so if you don't turbo it... you're leaving plenty of performance on the table.

[Kupnu4]

If the head isn't flat/square, it will need to be skimmed for a proper head gasket seal.

Don't use the lightweight lifters/tappets as they have been found to fail in high hp applications.

Not sure why a turbo would kill the car?

These motors (in NA form) are only good for 200 hp max, so if you don't turbo it... you're leaving plenty of performance on the table.

It seems pretty straight to me but i can't find the name of that particular tool for testing the flat surface.
Have bought an "victor reinz" gaskit and stretch bolts.
Regarding turbo, i have read many forums and spent quite a bit of time researching the "turbo" application on this engine, people seem to be struggling to have a proper fueling and air intake systems, they say an option is a standalone ecu and v6 maf, but when i was researched that - noone seem to know how to configure them properly and they seem to have problems..
Also its just too much money, it actually is cheaper to swap ABY with all the toys. 200bhp would be great, the car has good torq and i see that it has a big potential, but i want to keep this car for many years, and turbo will just wear the engine out (that is my personal opinion, im not a professional). Thank you very much for response, you have cleared some things up for me.

[steve briance]

I think if you are refurbishing the head you need to seriously consider pressing in new valve guides especially if the mileage is unknown.
The picture of the exhaust port shows one which appears oily - this isn't right so the oil must have been getting in there somehow and when i rebuilt my spare head i found the exhaust valve guides were the ones with the most play as they get hotter than inlet side. No point in fitting new valve stem oil seals if the valves are rocking around so much they stretch the seal!

Clean
New hydraulic tappets
Valve guides pressed in and new seals
Grind in valves to seats to make sure of good seal and best chance of good compression
Bearing surfaces visual check but there is not much you can do if bad other than line boring and that is bigger money than getting a different head.

that would be as close as you can get to a new head in my book.

[Bowie69]

If you change the guides, you will need the valve seats cut as well -get a 3-angle job done at this point and pick up a few HP.