Ailing engine (Updated after teardown)

My brother in law bought a 74 Duster early last year. It was running rough, so I decided to take a look at it. Found lots of oil in number 3 cylinder. It had a head gasket blown out that looked just like yours. Pulled the heads and had them resurfaced by a race engine shop. I bought a machinist's straight edge from Summit to check the block deck surface and found that the deck was pulled up at each of the top row of head bolts. I could fit a .003" feeler gauge under the straight edge right where the gasket blew out. So I thought the engine needed to come out. The machine shop thought I should just put it back together and try it before going to the extra trouble. I thought about that for a couple days before deciding to try a very small file on the deck to see what that would do. I put paper towels in each cylinder and sprayed a little WD40 on them so they would stick to the cylinder walls to catch any filings they landed there. I worked on and off for a couple days on the raised area around the head bolt holes until the worst place was still right where the gasket blew out but a .0015" feeler gauge was snug under the straight edge. One of the race engine shop guys said the Fel-Pro 1008 head gaskets needed .002" or less. Put it all back together using ARP 144-4001 studs, drove it easy a couple of miles, rechecked for leaks, and took it out on the road. My brother in law said stomp down on it so I did. And, the throttle linkage hung wide open. I was tapping the gas pedal hoping it would pop back but no luck. I finally had to turn the switch off while hoping I didn't lock the steering wheel. Got the funky throttle linkage straightened out and all is well. Anyway, that was a pretty good test and no gasket problems.

https://www.summitracing.com/parts/arp-144-4001/make/dodge
These studs have the allen wrench ends so they can installed through the heads with the heads in place and the engine in the car.