I wish there was just a final torque spec instead of doing the 90 degree turns, seems it would be much easier that way to know

 

there is use ARP head studs

 

I almost bought those, wish I would have now

 

you should compare the height of the head with what the RAVE says, these head have very little that can be taken off of them.
Back in the 80 when the want to shorten the combustion chambers they simply milled everything they could off the deck of the heads, leaving very little material to be removed in the future.
if the head have been decked too much then the head bolts will bottom out and not seal. the toque figure you will get will be the bolt in the block not the clamping of the head.

 

It's surprising this isn't taken into account by those making the bolts. 2-3mm shorter bolts would solve this I guess.

Is there an argument for taking a bit off new bolts, just to be sure this doesn't happen?

 

No. And no.

 

Take it back apart and see what you did wrong.

 

For TTY bolts. After the initial torque you are tuning the bolt 180 deg. 180 deg = 0.036" (1/2 rotation of 14 thread pitch) further the bolt has to go into the head. If the bolt did bottom out during the two 90 deg turns it would most likely break.

ARP studs are bottomed out (hand tight) when installed in the block. The nut could bottom out on the threads depending upon thread length. From what I recall, they went below the head surface. So, this isn't likely.

 

When you figure out what went wrong, please let us know. I'm planning to put my heads back on tomorrow with the TTY bolts.
I wonder if I should have opted for studs. I don't want to do this job again for a while.

 

Nope, the gaskets can be installed upsidedown.

Whoever did them before my on my 04 put them in that way. The side with the metal showing should face up.

I dont think it would cause the leaking. The one thing I did see is the metal part of the gaskets leaves marks/imprints on the block.