YouTube channel recommendations

I've been watching vice grip garage and roadkill garage lately. I enjoy them, but it seems like they are more focused on personality and hijinks. Can you recommend a channel that is more focused on technical aspects that I can learn something from? Like instead of just saying we replaced that part with this part, a bit more of a deep dive into how and why this part is an improvement, that sort of thing. Project binky is great from a fabrication standpoint, other than that I haven't found anything that is "mentally stimulating". Thanks

There's some channels out there associated with the more popular personality and hijinks channels that are pretty good to follow. Kevin from KSR performance has started a channel in the past year, a lot of the recent content has been focused on the build he was doing for Cleetus (El Camino drag car) but he also does road race stuff and supports a TA2 Viper. Those videos are pretty interesting when he dives into changes and setups on those cars or is at the track helping with testing and racing the car. KSR Performance and Fabrication

Tom Bailey has a decent channel as well focused on his drag racing at a very high (amateur?) level. It's based around his current builds going on as well as his racing and is fairly serious. Along the same lines as above though, Steve Morris is his engine guy so his channel dives deeper into that stuff which is pretty interesting.

Home Built by Jeff has some really good projects that are heavy on the fabrication and it is focused on him working his way through the problems he faces.

My first thought was KSR too.  

I enjoy goonsquad and finnegans garage but neither are as technical as ksr.  

Skid Factory. It's an offshoot of Mighty Car Mods. Allen and Woody decided to try and do a show their way. Rather have two guys learning as they go, it's two professional mechanics. 

Allen does a fantastic job of teaching and making it seem less scary, especially wiring for EFI. There is humor, but think of it more of two mates going back and forth in a garage. 

5/5 stars. Do recommend.

the corvair build series from matt's offroad recovery channel seemed pretty in depth IIRC. goes into the parts he's using and why he's using them. lots of fabrication and family freindly as well

I'll check these out. For the record, I'm not against personality and hijinks, I just prefer some learnin to go with it.

The KSR one sounds interesting. I think the cars cletus has are really cool, but I dont like watching him at all.

If you like to actually learn stuff as they build

https://www.youtube.com/user/superfastmattmccoy

If you enjoy car reviews and don't mind silly Canucks Throttle House is great. 

I checked out the KSR channel and watched the first few episodes of the el camino build last night. It was good. I liked that he went a little deeper into what he was doing and doesn't rely on theatrics. Thanks for the tip.

I'm a 'revival' addict. Thunderhead289 and Junkyard Digs are two young guys who delve into the technical basics of getting cars to run. Probably not what more advanced guys/fabrication junkies are looking for but I really enjoy watching them getting dead vehicles to fire. The Plymouth Satellite was probably the greatest challenge. I thought they'd lose that one.

Dylan McCool does something similar.

Uncle Tony's Garage never fails to teach me something. I'm not put off by his New York swagger as I grew up around people like him. Some people can't stand him. For me, it's like hanging out with a guy I knew in high school.

Mustie1 is for anyone wanting to learn how to fix anything.

Project Farm is about testing various tools and common automotive products. His home lab tests are well thought out and he never takes sponsorship from manufacturers.

Most of the guys I watch are truly in the GRM mold. No fancy tools, no fab shops, often working on stuff on the ground. High end builds really don't interest me as they are unrelatable to the world in my own garage.

https://www.youtube.com/c/ThrottleStopGarage/videos is Throttle Stop Garage, a guy in Canada building a heavily modified Volvo 122.  If  you're interested in how to make carbon fiber parts he goes into great detail, plus there's also a lot of welding fabrication.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaIIoFbVqP6NNF78iit5-Xg Is Irontrap Garage, a guy in Pennsylvania who's into traditional hot rods, there's plenty of welding, sheet metal forming for rust repair and general fabrication.

https://www.youtube.com/c/SuperfastMatt/videos is Superfast Matt, he's putting a Tesla model 3 drivetrain underneath a 1950 Jaguar saloon.

https://www.youtube.com/user/Squatch253/videos is Squatch253 a Ford mechanic in Minnesota.  he rarely does anything automotive on his channel, but he goes into intricate detail of the restoration of old tractors and Caterpillar crawlers.

https://www.youtube.com/user/retropowercars/videos is Retropower, a shop in the UK that builds very cool restomods, including a Ford Escort for Sir Gordan Murray.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsAaakmE0dAtG7AVFb7oUEA is the personal channel of Lucky Costa, the host of Hot Rod Garage on the Motor Trend Network.  He builds a lot of muscle cars and trucks for clients.

https://www.youtube.com/c/RonCovell/videos is Ron Covell, master metal shaper.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2pQT90JBqbMHSVLtbJBvyw is Tyrell's Classic Workshop in the UK, they repair and restore exotics.

https://www.youtube.com/c/Harrysgarage/videos is Harry Metcalf, former editor of Evo magazine in the UK.  He has an amazing personal car and motorcycle collection, and also does reviews of lots of interesting new and used exotics.  His second channel Harry's Farm is interesting as well.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCl9I7RgD0i7JZ58CK17kKHQ is Soup Classic Motoring, a guy in Ireland who's slowly restoring a Lotus Esprit along with a Range Rover and a Mercedes saloon.

https://www.youtube.com/c/fanatikbuilds/videos is Fanatik Builds, a young guy and his dad building a restomod Triumph GT6 with a crazy combination of engine, transmission and suspension donors.

https://www.youtube.com/c/MacroMachines/videos is Macromachines, a college student hand building a replica of a 1930s era Indy race car.

bobzilla said:

If you enjoy car reviews and don't mind silly Canucks Throttle House is great. 

I like savagegeese too

The only one I can add to the list that hasn't been mentioned yet is Cold War Motors. Very western Canada, but quite the array of interesting cars and some seriously good work being done.

Not really very technical, but M539 is entertaining and really well edited.  BMW based content, mostly V12.

In reply to 02Pilot :

Cold War Motors is the best show out there for lack of bullE36 M3 and overspending. Scott is a truly talented guy and I greatly admire how he treats every four door pile of crap he finds in a field with such respect. For those who do not watch regularly, current cars they are playing with are: Edsel Ranger, 56 Continental, Model T, 60 Fury and a Rover 3 liter. 

In reply to ddavidv :

I love project farm. I find the test rigs he makes more interesting than the what he is actually testing.

One interesting channel I have found and wanted to share was torque test channel. Only tangentially car related, but the guy has an impact wrench dyno, and does all kinds of impact wrench comparisons with charts and graphs. One that kind of shocked me was showing the torque differences going from .25 to .375 to .50 air lines. And his vids are fairly short and to the point. It's pretty good.

In reply to bearmtnmartin (Forum Supporter) :

The fact that they work with really basic tools and in less than ideal conditions for the most part makes it so much more relevant to so many people who don't have giant piles of money to throw into a nice shiny shop. I also like how they have clearly defined, realistic goals for a project, and those are of wildly varying levels of end product - the Fury versus the Frazer, for example. The walk-around of the Model T was great showing how Scott lays out exactly what his desired end-state for a project it.

I don't think anyone has mentioned Robot Cantina.  His project is very strange (still a car tho) but he does a lot of technical discussion.  His helper Gnome is a bit of a personality though.  He's also one of us..  I mean literally he's on the forum (I appologize I can't remember his handle) but his channel is growing massively.  

I'm a little biased, but there's a guy on the Flyin' Miata YouTube channel that does videos on fundamentals and technical information. Watch for the white lab coat. No hijinks.

bearmtnmartin (Forum Supporter) said:

Cold War Motors is the best show out there for lack of bullE36 M3 and overspending. Scott is a truly talented guy and I greatly admire how he treats every four door pile of crap he finds in a field with such respect. For those who do not watch regularly, current cars they are playing with are: Edsel Ranger, 56 Continental, Model T, 60 Fury and a Rover 3 liter. 

I forgot to include him in my list above.  He does do great work, restoring piles of crap most people wouldn't give a second glance to, plus the banter that goes on between him and his friends (especially during mail call) is hilarious.  And how many other automotive sites prominently feature a poodle in their videos?  

I don't know how much of it is on Youtube - maybe better access in the US as some stuff is blocked here. I enjoy watching Engine Masters. It's Fryberger and Steve from Roadkill Garage as well as another Steve from Westech. They dyno engines with various modifications and they're reasonably methodical compared to the other shows they're on.

I also enjoy watching Richard Holdener's channel. He's another Westech guy who dynos stuff and he's very prolific. 

I'll definitely be checking the other links in this thread tonight

Random metal working / rust repair videos thats are not in English  :)

 sometimes I put on the closed captions  in English, other times i just turn down the sound and watch , 

There are a couple from Japan rust repairing an old 240Z  and a AE86

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFp03hWKHSg

or   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFp03hWKHSg

its a bit like Binky building brackets but doing rust repair panels , 

There are also some good German ones from Markt magazine , 

And then you get the crazy young guys in Vietnam building "Ferraris" etc starting with cardboard and plaster..... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6_OW91Pgf0

I am sure there are more that I have not found yet ,  or the British motorcycle guy ( Allen Millyard ) who loves to cut bike motors with his trusty hacksaw and put them back together with a few more parts :)

stuart in mn said:

bearmtnmartin (Forum Supporter) said:

Cold War Motors is the best show out there for lack of bullE36 M3 and overspending. Scott is a truly talented guy and I greatly admire how he treats every four door pile of crap he finds in a field with such respect. For those who do not watch regularly, current cars they are playing with are: Edsel Ranger, 56 Continental, Model T, 60 Fury and a Rover 3 liter. 

I forgot to include him in my list above.  He does do great work, restoring piles of crap most people wouldn't give a second glance to, plus the banter that goes on between him and his friends (especially during mail call) is hilarious.  And how many other automotive sites prominently feature a poodle in their videos?  

Another +1 for Cold War Motors. It's amazing what they do on modest budgets. And absolutely no drama. 

In reply to eastpark :

they smoke far too much legal Canadian weed to have drama.