Sounds good. I'll do that. The plate is already off. Doubt I'll have any issues with the sway bar + links. Thanks.

The sway bar is deceptive. It seems like it should come right out, but the bends and angles make it annoying. I'm pulling my manifolds right now myself. Nasty business.

Technically, you don't need to completely remove the sway bar. You do have to remove both brackets and disconnect the end links, though. Once it's disconnected, just slide the bar back enough so that the flanges can slip by in front of it.

That worked, and actually was helpful because I had to wedge my rear header up in the gap above the sway bar while I slid the front header in...then wiggled the back one forward and up into place. Very annoying, but the sway bar held up the rear header when I ran out of hands. If you were replacing with OEM manifolds, you could get the rear on first then slide the front one by it as is Bentley procedure. But my headers have the collectors way closer to the sway bar and low...right above it, so you can't mount the front manifold on the studs and get the rear one on if it's not already above the front collector.

I took a pause from this project, busy with other things and waiting for tools and parts to arrive.

Yesterday I got back under there and removed the manifolds. Went exactly as you suggested and it was pretty easy. Specifically:

(M54b30)

The exhaust manifolds had already been disconnected from above, with 10 of the 16 studs unscrewed from the head, and 6 studs still in there (the nuts came off those ones). Yes, having all those studs out probably helped.

The stiffening plate under the engine had already been removed, freeing up the sway bar bushings.

I removed the bottom ends of the sway bar links on both left and right sides. 18mm wrench on the nut and 18mm wrench on the other side to stop the ball stud from turning. Pretty easy. I first tried to do it without disconnecting the left side (intake side, driver's side), but that did not give the maneuverability I needed, so I removed that as well.

After doing that, I was able to maneuver sway bar to make enough space to remove the manifolds/cat converters (which were already free on the rear end). No need for me to fully remove the sway bar.

So I had no need to fully remove the sway bar, and it would probably have been impossible to remove the exhaust manifolds without disconnecting the sway bar.

Also, I did not need to touch anything else down there, such as the right engine mount.

Good to hear it went as expected. My headers are sitting on the studs mocked up. I need to mark them for cats and start cutting.