it surely did not take me an hour and a half to even do one. it all depends on how rusted tight the EGR crap is to the headers. i had to saw off just before the threaded connection on the headers to even get the thing out... after i got it out i had to still get the threaded piece out of the egr tubing nut and i ripped my vise (bolted to table) across the basement and it still wouldn't come out till i sat it in a cup of wd40 for 4 hours....
the time for the project all depends on the egr nut tightness
i hope you're not talking about the nut where the EGR line bolts to the header?? if so then you wasted your time trying to get at it with the manifold still in place. that does not have to be loosened until after you remove it.
instead, you loosen these 2 bolts here to get the DPFE bracket out of your way,
View attachment 72995
then you loosen this fitting. (EGR line).
View attachment 72996
then you unbolt the manifold from the head and the flange.
then you can negotiate the header (with EGR line still attached) up and out of the engine bay.
of course the CAI will also have to be removed.
once you have the entire manifold out of the car, it'll be 10x easier to remove the EGR line and swap it to the new one. rusted or not, PB blaster and a torch, if absolutely necessary, will loosen it up.
(obviously you're not going to want to use PB Blaster and a torch at the same time...)