Hey,

I was just reading the guide on a4mods and the guy says to torque your spark plugs to 22lbs... I only have a regular socket wrench, no torque wrench. Do I need a torque wrench or can I just tighten the spark plugs as much as I can?

Thanks

 

spark plugs have a crush ring that goes with them you dont want to put them on to tight at all cause they dont need to be. just a regular socket wrench is fine and just using the socket and an extension hand tighten them down and then take a ratchet and give them just a little bit more and thats all that they need

 

30Nm / 22 ft-lb is what you're looking for. All the correct torque values are in the FSM.

If you are doing any work on your car whatsoever, you should really invest in a torque wrench. You can "guess" and it probably won't hurt anything, but without a torque wrench you always run the risk of it backing out because it's not tight enough or damaging the threads / mushrooming the material if it's too tight. That being said, 30Nm with your average socket wrench is snug but not too tight.

 

Honestly I have built racing engines where torque meant everything, but have never measured torque on spark plugs. There is certain things where torque does matter, like head bolts, main bearing caps, rod caps and such but seriously you are over thinking this if you're looking to torque spark plugs to specs

 

You call it over thinking, I call it correct. You don't have to torque anything down to spec if you don't want to.

 

I've never torqued my plugs to spec. I just hand tighten then snug 'em up and my car runs just fine. I guess according to you though my plugs are going to go at any second because I wasn't **** retentive about it.

 

Maybe you need to brush up on your reading comprehension skills if that's what you've gathered from my posts.

 

I almost never use a TW, but when you're new to working on cars, it's probably not a bad idea.

You want it to be pretty snug, but not super snug. I usually keep my hand right on the inside of the ratchet with spark plugs and tighten them down that way.

 

Well unless you're building a high HP/compression race engine torque specs for plugs aren't extremely important. I just hand tighten then snug them up a couple turns with a ratchet.

 

hand tight, then 1/4 turn, should be instructions on the back of what ever plugs you bought of what the specs should be.