I think I would like one that snaps into your ratchet, so you don't have to worry about magnets working. any recommendations?

This is what I'm referring to when it snaps into your ratchet

there is also this type, but seems more prone to error if you are under a car tied up in a pretzel with one arm tied behind your back trying to tighten a nut
https://www.lislecorp.com/specialty-...ue-angle-meter

 

I have the friction style version from Snap On and it sucks. It's kinda like the first one you posted.

I am just going to step up to a an angle style torque wrench instead.

 

Just get a digital angle-capable Snap-On torque wrench. Go down to the local community college and have one of the students buy it with their discount. They get like 50% off.

GD

 

I'm fine with Craftsman or Kobalt or whatever for most my tools, but I spent a lot of money on my torque wrenches. Those are one tool that really matters.

 

As if a bolt knows (or cares) what angle it's torqued to...

 

Why does it suck?

 

The friction is acheived by an O ring. If the O ring is dry it doesn't work and it dries out just sitting around. I lubed it up over and over and it will still stop working in the middle of torquing a bolt. Waste of $70 or whatever it was

 

There are some damn smart bolts out there!

 

Thanks for the clarification. A full digital wrench would be nice to have. check out the snap ons, wowza!

https://shop.snapon.com/categories/682069

 

Here's a nice one, have had good luck with their products, but not sure if I would trust it on a 10K motor.

 

Snap on site is down so I can't open the link so I am not sure which model you linked, but you're going to build a $10k engine and balk at a $600 wrench?

 

The Snap-On one's are great. I have the 1/2 and the 3/8 as do most of my tech's.

Angle is closely associated with bolt stretch. Bolt stretch is the BEST way to tighten fasteners like rod cap bolts. But isn't possible in blind holes like head bolts. Angle torque is the next best thing and it avoids false torque readings due to stick-slip (creaking).

GD

 

Not to be mean or anything here, but...

You're not looking for the distinction between 89.6° and 90.3°.

I'm pretty DUMB, but even I can eyeball a 90° turn with reasonably decent accuracy. I can even divide it in half (45°), thirds, (30°), and can estimate 70° reasonably closely. (2 30° increments and part of another)

Granted, a certain level of precision is ALWAYS required, but at some point, you get into the "measure with micrometer, mark with spray paint, cut with backhoe" kind of situation.

As GD said, torque angle is related to bolt stretch. As opposed to "bolts" like we all knew growing up, where they were supposed to be rigid unmoving inflexible RODS, TTY bolts are supposed to be like SPRINGS. You torque em PAST their region of "solidity", into their region of SPRING behavior, where they can stretch and move. Butt... the precision with which the bolts are made, LET ALONE any/all of the parts they're clamping, IS NOT in the tenths of a degree kind of range. Or even 10°. Last time I torqued head bolts on a LS motor, I was supposed to torque em to some # of ft-lbs (OK now they're "tight" and all the space in there is taken up) and then it was like 250° total from there to done, in increments, much like torquing an old SBC to 30 ft-lbs, then 40, then 50, then 60. Tell me, what percentage of that 250° would it take to cause an unsuccessful build?

Many of these kinds of things are appropriate to a FACTORY, where they have all these POWER TOOLS and people who literally have never worked in anything more complex than a soybean field and and they have to set em to SOMETHING so that the end product WORKS without depending on the INTELLIGENCE or DISCRETION of the witless employees. (no I've never ran a factory, can you tell?) That's NOT the same as, we're a coronavirus test production lab, and if you miss it by 1.2% or whatever, that the matter will meet the anti-matter on the spot right there in your garage, and the entire known universe will be reduced to a smoking ash about 1/8" wide except you won't even KNOW IT and you'll carry on as if nothing ever happened, and even worse than that, your lifters will tick or your motor will "overheat" because it reaches 220° and everybody KNOWS that water boils at 212° RIGHT?. NO. Be reasonable. Don't go down the road of, measure with micrometer, mark with chalk, cut with axe. NO.

 

Sofa is right of course. But it won't do to tell customers that kind of thing - besides encouraging them to do it themselves or reduce the level of esteem they hold us technicians at - it also looks bad when people enter a speed shop and see the Chinese rusty crap they have at home in their pathetic tool tote that's made out of Home Depot bucket and one of those bucket boss things they bought at a yard sale.

No - when I pull out a $700 Snap-On torque wrench (mind you it's in a drawer of my epic box with hutch that cost ~$14,000) it's like withdrawing the spear of destiny from beneath my frock. Customers bow in penitence when I draw the sacred wrench....

Tis how things must be.

GD

 

LOL to both of you! Well,I would imagine its also kind of nice to know you did it by the book when your engine is spinning at 8500rpm or your rocketing down the straights at 200mph.