Man that blows for sure but is what it is. Is that something you can leverage insurance or does being on track void that?

Yes, they do come in packs of 5 but it was either swap 1 new one in and keep the other 4 as spare. Guess I can save the 4 old ones as on track spares then should I need a quick fix.

Rjones- if they start to yield at 120ft/lbs wouldnt you think that's too much to actually torque them to then to account for margin or error on a torque wrench?

 

I was thinking of contacting insurance, but I'm sure they'll say no since this was a timed event. And I would rather my rate not go up. I would also hate for them to pay it, and then have them drop me, ask for their money back, or something else stupid like that...

 

Absolutely!

Mine are all at 90ftlbs and the spacers never come off. I check them before each event and they've never been loose. That means I loosen/tighten the wheels studs six times per year.
Not much different than what most people do with their wheels. Hm.....

I assume it's the studs on the spacers that break, not the OEM?

 

they do not start to yield at 120ft-lbs. 120 ft-lbs is the appropriate torque setting based on their yield strength.

 

Sorry, I said it wrong... that's effectively what I meant. I didn't even see you'd posted before me.

 

Do you guys run these torque specs hot or cold? I torque (stock studs) to 80lbs, then after a few warm up laps getting brakes and tires up to temp, I get another 1/4 to 1/2 turn to same torque. After doing this and everything cools down I have measured breakaway torque at 90lbs.

So I'm wondering if you guys do these torque specs cold or hot. Cause I can imagine when things heat up it actually makes a difference. These last few posts are making me nervous to run the extended studs.

 

I would assume the torque ratings account for temperature changes, etc. I'd also assume the listed torque specs are the midpoint of a window that is safe, so a little above or a little below is okay. The engineers know there are too many variables to account for, so they probably wouldn't recommend a number that is on the ragged edge.
A 10ftlb difference is pretty significant, though. Maybe someone who knows will chime in.
I have always done mine after the car has been parked a while.

 

Well I'd like to say that I'm enjoying this discussion and haven't quite processed all of the issues with stud torque. That said torquing your lugs while significantly hot is bad for 2 reasons:

Thermal growth - When the studs heat up they grow by a certain amount,possibly more than the interfacing wheel/spacer because the wheel/spacer can dissipate heat better being exposed to more air. The stud is essentially trapped in the wheel/stud hole, unable to dissipate heat. That said, the stud will loose some tension(aka torque) when it is hot because of this growth. Now if the nuts get re-torqued in this state you will essentially be "taking up" this growth. When the stud cools, they can no longer change length so this increases the amount of tension in the bolt. This will create a tension load in the bolt that is equivalent to the load that would be required to stretch it the amount it grew when warm. It is very easy to create large loads with thermal expansion.

Material Strength - As temperature rises the strength of most metals decreases. Therefore, torquing hot studs will make it easier to over torque(yield). How this changes is material dependent and temperature dependent but being close to the hottest part on a car I can see it having an effect. Especially, at the hub interface where the stud is closest to the brake caliper.

For reference: I am not an expert on the subject matter, but I do pretend to be an engineer on a daily basis.

 

For everyone's reference, these are the lug nuts I run. They performed flawlessly on my friends X (with OEM studs) all day torqued to 85ftlbs. I ordered another set before we started on the discussion of lug nut torque. And I'm wondering if I should go with something else if the ARP studs need to be torqued to 120. As these lug nuts are recommended to be torqued at 85-88.


http://motorsporthardware.com/produc...e-nuts-14x1-5/

 

If i'm not mistaken, all lug nuts are recommended to the 85+-. Torquing to a higher limit would be completely up to you.
In all my years of driving on track, auto-x, and around town, I've never had a stud break on me (knocking on wood as we speak) so I think I'll keep doing what I've been doing.

 

Not going to lie, all those lugs they have on that site look EXACTLY like muteki. Even the key/socket.

I've been using Muteki for over a decade now with street/track use with no issues.

 

They're definitely nice, well made lug nuts. The only think I don't like is the coating on the threads isn't that great, and it comes off. So the unused portion of threads rusts..

 

Glad we're now in discussion about lug nuts given the topic of torque settings on studs. So what do the smart people here think about these higher torque settings for the run of the mill lug nuts like the ones shown above? I cant remember exactly what I have but guessing they are Muteki or something like that so nothing special but not complete garbage either.

One would think the higher the torque setting the greater the chance of stripping out the threads in the lugnuts...

 

The fear of stripping/cross-threading is what led me to go with the Muteki SR48s over the standard tuner style lugnuts, as they're chromoly and not aluminum. I had a set of aluminum Blox lugnuts and the edges started to get a little round and they would get hung up on the threads after a couple years.

 

eff it. I'm returning my M12 studs and moving to 5/8 nascar spec studs and lug nuts


Seriously though, using a lug nut that can't handle the same torque as the stud makes using the better stud pointless.