Hi folks, I thought I would update you on my spark plugs on my 2002 E350 Ford V10, two valve.
I changed the plugs origionally at 65,000 and none were loose. I set the new plugs at 14 ft lbs like Ford said and within 10K I had a loose plug but caught it before it tore up the threads.
I torqued the plugs from then on at 30 ft lbs with no never seize as blownoutsparkplug.com recommends and now I have 180,000 miles on the van. Today I changed the plugs because I had a rubber boot somewhere that was acting up and I decided I wanted to check the torque on the plugs anyway. I have changed the plugs twice since the loose one.
All the plugs were at 28 ft lbs after 40k miles. The threads are excellent, the plugs came out perfectly and the new ones went in with no problems. this is the short thread motor.
I put the new boots on and it is running like a top. Just thought I would let you know that I have tried the blownoutsparkplug.com recommendation for torque and it is working excellently for me with no problems.
Hope is helps someone
Andrew.

 

Oh by the way I got the boots from RockAuto.com and they are Denso boots for $45.00 including shipping for the ten boots. At Oreilly's they are $8 each and at Ford they are $16 each.
Andrew.

 

What were the symptoms with that loose plug?
Did mine at 14 ft/lb..

 

At the 10,000 mile mark I had read the article by blownoutsparkplug.com and decided to check mine to see if he was right and sure enough I had a loose one, and it was blowing gasses up into the spark plug hole and was only finger tight. I believe that the origional plugs were set at about 20 ft lbs, thats why they didn't come loose, I have a pretty good feel for torque, I have mechaniced for years. It took a good bit of effort to break the origionals loose and they were not stiff once loosed from torque. So in fear of stripping them I put them at 14 ft lbs, but blownoutsparkplug.com he has torqued those threads to 100 ft lbs and never had one strip yet to see if the threads strip out under too much tension. Its not the tension that kills the threads, but the plugs loose and wallowing around in there for months that destroy the threads and so they blow out because of looseness, not over tightening.
So I have torqued three sets of plugs to 30lbs and had no issues at all with the threads. I emphasize, no anti-seize, it lubricates the situation and makes it worse, especially at 14 ft lbs.
I went to O'Reillys and got a 3/8 drive torque wrench that clicks when at the right torque, checked it in the vice with a bolt and my real torque wrench to make sure it was clicking at the 30lb mark and it was a lot easier to use than the big one, I am working on a van which the engineers should have to work on for a while before they give us stuff like this to work on.
Hope it helps, but there were no symptoms of a loose plug for me, I just happened to check them.
Andrew

 

Well ,looks Like I have to check mine then.

 

My dodge ram with the hemi has aluminum heads and I never used anti sieze either on the plugs. I put two sets in already and no problems.

 

But you probably don't have 3-4 threads per plug in there either.
Do you?

 

No I don't. You're right. There are many, many threads on the plugs for the hemi.