I used loctite and torque'd mine to 18lbs...have not had a single problem with several Autox's and a track day.

 

I used the red loctite (actually permatex brand) and torqued mine to 18 ft/lbs. as well with good results so far. A question a little off topic but not far. I recently changed mine out and seen on one site that 40mm studs for stock or up to 5mm spacers and 50mm studs for 5mm to 10mm spacers. Are they measuring OAL of the stud or just the treaded end that goes into the lug nuts?

 

Rotated my tires today...checked all the studs. ONE had slipped to 13~15lbs...this probably happened as I was loosening my lug nuts. After a track day and the autox's the wheels got quite hot and after some in-between retorques during the track day with hot wheels. It felt like the torque on them was 100+ ft lbs during loosening.

But all was well, a quick retorque of the stud and its happy.

 

That will have to become part of my routine - checking the torque on the studs. I was approaching it with the mindset, once the studs are in there, I never have to worry about them again. They'll get their first test this weekend on the road course at Gainesville Raceway.

 

Got home from work last night, jacked up both front wheels and was able to remove 7 of the 8 studs - one just did not want to budge. I had the car in gear and the E-brake pulled, but the front hubs still turned. Anyhoo, cleaned all the holes out with air and brake cleaner, installed the 7 new studs with red loctite, torqued to 18 lbs and left the car in the air over night. This morning I coated the studs with antisieze from about 1/2 inch away from the hub, reinstalled the front wheels, torqued the wheels to 70 lbs and drove to work (about 9.5 miles of stop and go). Re-torqued wheels - hadn't budged. So far, so good. This saturday will be the test - high speed autocross on a road course.

I've done everything I can to make this work - we'll see what happens.

 

Front was in the air when you were trying to remove the studs? You could do it this way, but you will need another person to stand on the brake pedal for you.

 

I couldn't figure out a way to remove all 4 studs with the wheel still on the car and the car still on the ground . Since I wanted to clean each hole out I needed full access, which means no wheel in my way. I just figured with the car in gear the wheel wouldn't move - shows what I know.

 

Just to jump on the ship that's pretty much sailed...

Have had the TSW 14mm to 12mm studs on my car almost since new. 1.5 years and good 35K miles now. I change wheels a lot. Never had a stud back out. The car is tracked often in TX heat. Have turned the black anodized hats a lovely shade of pink from the heat.

Installed with red loctite, torqued to 18ft/lb. Lugs are the kics with the rotating seat. Torque them to 89ft/lb. Light coat of anti-seize is on the stud, have had to renew it once in all this time.

 

I fit a set to the brake kit test car years ago and never had one come loose. Red Loctite and as snug as I could dare go without the allen drive breaking. I'm not sure where this 18lbs of torque comes from but it's way under a torque to yield spec for such a part: 12MM. The stud truly should be the same torque as your old bolt. I know you won't get near that with any reasonable tool but I'd never consider 18ft lbs nearly right. Just my .02 on it.

 

I thought similar, but 18lbs has proven to be enough thus far for me.

 

Proper torque on the lug nut put's the desired amount of tension in the entire stud (in the case of lugs which get removed regularly, maybe something like 60% of yield). The torque value for installing the stud into the hub is strictly to prevent the stud from backing out when removing the lug nut. Once the lug nut is torqued, the stud doesn't care how tight it was installed into the hub, it only cares how much tension it sees from the lug nut.

Jason

 

My only personal problem with that is that it's clearly obvious the removal of the lug nuts later is applying a torque need that's greater than the value the stud is held to the hub. To me that means the yield of the nut to stud is fine but we'd still be much too short of any proper value of the stud to the hub.

If one could manage 85lbs of torque on the stud to hub that interface remains between only those two parts and would allow the longer stud area to exhibit the same value by clamping the wheel to the hub.

I don't claim to be an engineer on this. On the other hand 18lbs of torque on the M12 stud to hub seem excessively light to me. So much so that torquing the nut on the wheel to 85-90 may well be exerting strain on the threads inside the hub still. I'm seeing that as sort of a secondary torque on the small end which I'd find unnerving for this application. I can't come up with any good counter reasons to not tighten well beyond this low amount.

 

If it means anything to you, when I torque mine I use one of the "dial" style, analog, torque wrenches. Not one of the racheting style. I only went to ~18 on initial. Now when I check them, I hit 30+ and they never budge. It seems as though as they sit in there and go through heat cycles and as the loctite cures, they tighten down quite a bit.

^Rephrase in the event I am not understood...but hopefully you get what I'm saying. The studs obviously don't turn themselves, but with heat cycles and them expanding/contracting in place they seem to seat themselves, and the fact that the loctite cures also holds them in place well. I think that sounds better