The pitting is of no concern there. That area is open to coolant via the water passage in the head. I would not do anything with it.

Deck looks great. Cleaner than most of mine when I do them.

Pistons, leave em be. You're likely to do more harm than good by breaking schmoo free that will find it's way between the piston and piston wall which could cause scoring.

 

That’s clean enough.

 

I've eaten off of worse

 

I thought the hole at the front of the block near the pitting was a oil passage and the coolant passage is at the rear. Am I wrong?

 

The port circled in red is the oil passage. The port with putting, circled in blue, is coolant.

 

Sure enough, thanks for the clarification. I guess the gasket is mirrored to fit both sides and has that shape over the front even thought the coolant passage there is just the hole?

 

Yep, correct

 

Yep, silly little coolant dam it is.

 

When I did my head gasket I spent a lot of time cleaning the pistons as well. Lots of WD-40 and elbow grease. I would turn the crankshaft to rotate the pist up to the top so I could really get at them. To what end? Not sure. But I was there and thought it was the thing to do.

 

Spray-on oven cleaner is great for cleaning combustion chambers, including the piston crowns. Just don't leave it on very long because it will start to erode the alumnium.
Clean each piston when it's at TDC, then rotate the engine to do a another one. There will usually be a small debris ring on the cylinder wall after you clean the crown, so wipe that away before that piston comes to the apex again. Wipe everything down -- including the decks of the block -- with a lightly oiled rag after you're finished.