Check your plugs- NOW.

[Black_Sunshine]

Originally posted by hmwave
Wait a minute here...

One person says torque when cold, one says hot.

Which is it?

Exactly. TTT

 

[03'Darin]

I saw this thread yesterday and it made me wonder. I just recently (after swapping X-pipes) discovered what sounds like an exhaust leak when the motor is cold. I have an X-pipe to manifold gasket waiting to go on that I ordered thinking it was the problem. When I came across this I went...hmmmmmmmmm. I am running Denso's WITH anti-seize. So when I got home last night I checked the plug torque and found.........they where all tight. Whewwwww.

I'll be putting the new gasket in Thursday.

 

[05 Roush]

Torque when hot. This will assure the plugs won't unscrew. I made the mistake of torquing when cold and a couple of plugs got loose.

 

[stangin]

I would think it is due to the different expantion rates of the different metals (alum head, iron plug) will cause them to loosen due to heat up, cool down cycles over and over. I think this is just going to be the nature of the beast.. I would re-torque or replace every 3 - 5K, its not like it is hard to get at the plugs. I like the regular Autolite 103's at a $1 ea, not a big deal to replace every other oil change just to be sure. I would use antiseize everytime as well, the two dissimilar metals could possibly fuse together, I have seen this before.. not on a Cobra though. Be very careful not to over torque the plugs as there are only four threads and easily stripped. Ford did address this in the revised head, my new drivers side head has a whole lot of threads and I am hoping they addressed the tick and cooling issues with the new head as well.