Well it's about time I posted another update:
Not a good one either...
At around 183,750 miles my wife called me and said the "Low Coolant" light had came on, but while on the phone it went back off. We checked later that night and it was down a bit, but not so much as to cause a problem. I thought I'd better keep an eye on it though. Well a day or two went by and while changing the oil I noticed there was some coolant around the lid of the surge/fill tank. Thought that was a bit odd. When I took the cap off, a whoosh of pressure was released. Hmmm... not good. A chemical combustion gas test revealed the presence of gasses in the coolant. Ouch! Time to plan on doing the head gasket.
At 183,811 miles I drove it into the shop and ripped it apart. Inspection showed traces of carbon creeping beyond the fire rings in between the cylinders. This time I ordered a proper Fel Pro gasket set instead of that DNJ stuff. The DNJ gasket was a graphite type material and the Fel Pro was their typical paper type. That to me suggests that the DNJ set was made of the wrong material. It also showed quite a bit of compression in the material, so I wonder if it lost torque? The head looked like it had some low spots between the cylinders after I hit it with the surface prep wheel, but the machinist said if there were low spots, then they weren't bad. He took an additional .003" and everything was Kosher.
Since coolant and cleaning debris got in the crankcase, I got to change out the Pennz Platinum with around 100 miles on it. Boy what a waste! Once all back together it was pretty much smooth sailing- just found one small leak, due to an installation error. Turns out I nicked an o-ring on the de-gas line coming off of the thermostat housing. Didn't show up until a couple of days later. Thankfully it happened on my own stuff and not a customer's (the mistake on the o-ring install- there's no way I'd gamble on cheap gaskets with customer vehicles)
Also while it was apart, I found that the fuel pressure regulator was bad- fuel was leaking out of the vacuum nipple. Ordered a Delphi replacement. Car seems to run a bit better with no un-metered fuel getting sucked into the intake- just waiting for my wife to report back on mileage changes.
Time for a couple of pictures- only two because I was in a hurry and ticked about the whole ordeal.
Here is the head just after I clamped it all back down with new bolts:
Here is the defective gasket:
As an aside, the bores looked really good, and minimal carbon build up on the pistons. As typical for the abomination that is the 2.4's crankcase ventilation- there was all kinds of spooge in timing cover and in the hoses going to the separator and into the air inlet above the throttle blade. No, it's not from the leaking gasket- no coolant was seeping in the crankcase. It happens whenever it gets short tripped.