My 1971 Camaro SS: Attaching the headers -- I didn't have any idea it would be so difficult!

Over the last week or so, I've struggled to get my headers mounted. These are the same headers as were on the car before I decided to tear into it, but the heads are new aluminum heads from Summit Racing. I had some 3/8" hex head bolts from Milodon as I recall. The bolts interfere with the radius of the header exiting the head. I scared myself several times as the bolts tended to cross-thread. I finally got the passenger side head bolted up, and went to the driver side. As it turned out, this side was impossible without damaging the threads in the head. So I thought I'd try studs. The ARP stud kit went for $50 to $100! So I finally ended up with the $30 Mr. Gasket kit. And I immediately saw a problem with the size of the nuts. The heads were 9/16" with a "built in" washer that was even wider. These nuts would be physically impossible to install without grinding holes in the primary header pipes. I determined that I needed to use 2 studs, and used the bolts on the rest. I ground the hex down from 9/16" (14.3 mm) nuts down to 12 mm (.47", almost 1/2"). It was still difficult to get them started but I was able to get the header mated up to the head. Whew! Another part of the project that ought to be easy, but turned out difficult.