clog inside the intake manifold....

In other words, can you get at the cylinder head bolts with just the valve cover pulled off? Or are they blocked by the cam shafts in some way?

I'm curious about this as well, if only just to verify the size/shape of the socket on the head bolts, say with a 10 mm hex wrench.

I suspect the answer is you do have to take the cam shafts off for head bolt access, and it's a moot point anyways: you normally wouldn't want to loosen those bolts without first removing the cams.

 

No, the head bolts are not accessible without removing the cams. I suppose you can untension the chain, keep the chain supported with a bungee cord and remove the camshafts. But it is a lot of work (and arguably, risk) for probably nothing.

You can see from the photo below that the head bolts are inaccessible.