I would say your good to go..

Well, MAYBE NOT!

I was torquing the head bolts last night, following the procedure to step up the ft-lbs by 20, 40, 60, etc. When I got up to 70 for the long bolts, one of them did not want to "click" on the wrench, and seemed to be turning a lot further than the others. I stopped short, concerned that I might pull the threads out of the block. I am going to get a different wrench just to verify it is not an issue with this wrench I have. At this point I am very worried that I have some bad threads. I used high pressure lube under the washers like the gasket instructions specified.

Damn! :mad:

are you using NEW bolts...i had same problem an it was because they were not new,had corrosion from being thru the water jackets,ended up with lotsa helicoils,,,,NEVER AGAIN

No, not new, but I carefully cleaned the threads. The only corrosion at all was on the first couple of threads. Glass beaded that part, and they easily threaded in. There was no corrosion at all further up the threads. From what I understand, with engines like the 454 that do not have blind threads, the damage occurs when the bolts are REMOVED, because the corroded threads are pulled through the head. All the threads were carefully chased out with a tap.

Might be time to look at a set of studs.

That sucks.. Sounds like Helicoil time.

It gets better - decided to pull that bolt out this morning, and the damn thing broke right at the threads! I'm beginning to seriously doubt the accuracy of my torque wrench! Time to pull the head back off, extract the broken bolt, and beg/borrow/buy a good torque wrench from somewhere/someone. I wish there was an easy way to calibrate these things. I borrowed an older Craftsman beam wrench, but not sure if that is any more accurate.

Anybody got a line on a decent, affordable wrench? Yeah, I know Snap On probably makes the best one, but I'm not in the business where this is an everyday use item.