[Walt Fricke]

Longish extensions for the socket wrench. A bit tricky to deal with pulling the cap? Magnet on a flexible stick useful. An engine stand (on which you can rotate the engine) helpful so you can let gravity help rather than hinder. There are ways of getting a nut to stick (but not too much) in a socket.

I suspect it would add more to the cost than it is worth to the end user to have rod bolts manufactured to a tolerance of 1/10,000 of an inch. A guy with machines and skills could make all his new bolts be the same exact length, but he'd probably figure it wasn't worth it. I thought of measuring the amount the torqued bolt end sticks out of its nut if you knew exact bolt, nut, and torqued rod widths along the bolt axis were, so you could measure how much bolt sticks out, but that would only be a way of measuring stretch, and it seems that for street motors, torque done right is good enough.