What a day...was successful in getting the headers bolted up
, not sure about the rest of you, this was one of the more difficult items to deal with single handedly and required a lot of patience on my part. There ended up being a few other bolts that just did not want to cooperate and more mods to the headers and bolts were done. Maybe ARP should be making 3/8 bolts with 1/4 inch heads for additional clearance. Actually, I think the headers need more straight running on the sides from the flange or a smaller diameter tube to help the transition from rectangle to round. See previous post and pictures above.
What I ended doing were the following to allow more clearance:
1. Opened up all bolt holes in header flange to 7/16. End to end clearance was not allowing the outer end bolts to even start on both headers. I think this helped the most in fitting them up along with the others below.
2. Had to grind off some of the flange on many of the bolts to go thru the header flange and be able to start them into the heads.
3. Ground all the washers all on one side to prevent any interference.
4. Took a 5/16 box wrench and ground it down on the outside to thin the wall of it and still had some issues on few bolts.
I'm sure I'm not the first to have these issues, but I think some refinements could be in order.