Is there any trick to getting them off? Does anything else that's in the way have to come off first? I am doing my gaskets tomorrow.

Also, what are the torque specs?

 

Pretty straightforward. I think the bolts torque about 13. I went 15 with the medium locktite.

 

Honestly people tend to overthink this, its a valve cover not a Main bearing cap,rod end or head gasket...it just has to seal oil thats splashed around inside from the push rods/rocker arms so trying to fish a torque wrench into the engine bay seems extremely silly for the task at hand. When you work on enough cars you know what feels right for certain applications of torque. Use a 1/4 inch drive ratchet & 11 mm deep well socket with a small extension, this allows you to almost feel the gasket compress & bolts tighten it down snug.

I recently did my valve seals and reused the stock valve cover rubber (or silicone?) gaskets with NO LEAKS and theres 166,000 miles on them! & 15 years!. Theres 10 bolts on each cover which has great clamping power the way it is, tighten them from center bolts to outwards bolts snug then slightly tighten them after that in the same patern the second time around. They just really need to be like a half to 3/4 turn after snug...don't over tighten or you could distort the valve cover sealing surface resulting in leaks.

For instance, tighten the top middle bolt first then tighten the bottum middle bolt then spread out in a criss cross patern to the edges, once to the edges (last 2 bolts on each cover end) then tighten front to back cover in an x patern so every surface has equal pressure on each side.

 

I use LA covers with Moroso gaskets...only 5 bolts to screw with and have never leaked...Cheaper too.