Assumption: HLA=hydraulic lash adjuster AKA by Mitsubishi as auto-lash adjuster. Since most people do not have the u shaped clips to retain the adjusters in the lifters, they use finger cots or cut off rubber glove finger tips to retain the adjusters. I have a set of the clips, but it is a very good idea to retain the adjusters securely. Imagine the places they could go if one or more fall out when removing the lifter assy.
At the risk of being overly obvious, remember the cam may come up from the rear when the lifter assy is removed unless the downward pressure at the front from the timing chain is negated, usually by removing and moving the cam sprocket gear and chain to the front holder or holding it down in some other manner.
When I removed the lifter assy, looked at those compressed valve springs and decided to go into the head loosening mode and do a quarter turn on each bolt starting at the ends and working toward the center as many times as needed. After there was about a 1/8" gap between the upper and lower cam mounts, completely removed the two rear most bolts which only clamp the circular packing. These are not the two bolts at the top of the tower! It worked well except the circular packing stuck to the upper mount and then fell out thus raising the orientation question.