360 Which YouTubers help or hurt?

The YouTuber phenomenon has been interesting to watch unfold over the last 6 years.

I’ve been thinking about the variation of types of YouTubers that help the 360 community and accurately represent what these cars can be… and there is the other end of opportunists looking for cheap thrills click bait …

post up your views on the matter -/ I’ll start from best to worst—


High quality—
Ratarossa
Seen through glass


Lower quality-
With-holding names…
But you know these people
Auction finds…
Budget fixes showing how said 360 will bankrupt a person
Hackery
Drama
Smoke
Looking for clicks—/ these people and the featured specimens do not represent the model and arguably hurt the values.. and perception. IMHO

 

Gosh, this is such a multi-faceted subject. The youtube hacks doing hackjobs on "broken" 360's could increase the number of people looking to buy one and do the same hack fixes, so the bottom of the barrel examples could actually increase in value due to demand.

The "OMG my car is broken!" youtubers that tow their car into a dealership to have their keyfob battery replaced and then brags about their ridiculous bill could scare away 90% of perspective buyers that don't want to DIY their Ferrari...decreasing value.

Ratarossa is one of the good ones, but the chopstick TDC trick has always rubbed me the wrong way, and I know it's not fair to judge him by that alone, but following his vid for belt change, there were definitely a few things lacking that following the WSM to a T cleared up, BUT for the mechanically inclined, it would be enough to sway someone to want to self maintain...so that may increase value..

NGSC started out ok in theory, but quickly fell into the unwatchable clickbait nonsense and made too many discrediting mistakes along the way.

I think at best they cancel each other out or have no effect. 80% (or more) of Ferrari buyers are looking to buy the best example they can find, while the other ~20% are looking to wrench.

I was/am in the 20% so I was more than willing to accept a car with more miles or a few issues, which I did...

 

I saw that and stopped watching it.

 

you should check out Mat Armstrong. Not 100% ferrari content, but he buys a lot of exotic cars at insurance auctions and rebuilds them. He did buy a 430 and put it back together and gave the car to his dad.
Another good one is Vin_tra(former Hoonigan guy). He has a 360 and has done quite a bit of stuff to it including a 6 speed swap. He was also gracious enough to sell me his complete F1 set up for a really good price. Good dude, i enjoy his content.

 

SamCrac also has some pretty good ferrari content from time to time. Ratarossa has even traveled over to the US to help him out several times.

 

To add to those mentioned, I also like Ferrarifxs. None of them really hurt imo. It's great having multiple sources even if some of them make mistakes sometimes. It is getting a bit repetitive at this point though since there's not much new ground to be covered.

 

I think he is on this forum and probably the best channel out there for this kind of work. He's just not as wildly popular as the other obnoxious, clickbait tubers because he's not obnoxious or clickbait...but he will actually answer you if you have a question as a normal, non-tuber. Those other guys drop their vid and then disappear until they drop another.

 

I'm addicted to the 360 modding and fixing channels
So much so that when I look at cars my wife says NO PROJECTS!
I don't want someone's finished project! Where's the fun in that?
She quickly reminds me "It's an old car, don't worry, something will break soon enough for you to work on..."

 

Words to live by.

 

I don't really think some you tube affects values but I would prefer them to tank so less reasons to sell and can buy another one cheap.

 

I think the Auto yootoobe has had its day imho. The early days of the jalopnik contributors were golden. Now it’s all just sponsored hype with unrealistic projects. “Omg I’m fixing a McLaren that I bought as a junker!!!”
It’s not realistic. I’d love to see an enthusiastic Miata rescue. Reality. Or.. the twenty something showing off her bod while fixing the Honda. Waaa waaa waaaah. You ain’t gonna hit that ever.

It’s all junk with maybe the exception of ratarossa. And I’m a Chris Harris guy myself.

 

OK you guys confused me so I googled "TDC chopstick hack ferrari".

and I got this post from Ricambi for the 348/355

https://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/threads/method-to-find-tdc.466334/#post-143491734

Is it something that would make you turn off Scott or am I missing something?

 

There have been several threads and controversies concerning finding true TDC on a Ferrari motor, I’ve been part of them and after thousands of posts concerning using a DTI vs dead stop (which a company developed based on a thread here) whether TDC is in the middle of the dwell vs. the piston reaching its highest point at first, nobody still agrees on anything and we’re all right and we’re all wrong.

My personal opinion is that just about any of these methods will get you within a half of a degree to TDC and for street cars, it probably won’t make much difference. Race cars might be a different story…

The chopstick thing, in my opinion, is nowhere near accurate (much like the old thumb over cylinder 1 trick) and the only reason it would ever work is because you have the marks on the pulleys to fall back on..but if you are working on a damn Ferrari motor, spend a couple bucks on a real tool that actually gives you some kind of measurement so you can actually determine that you are doing the job accurately. I personally have the HE TDC tool and I guess that could be overkill for most DIY guys, but a few hundred bucks on a tool is still nothing compared to what shops charge. I also have the $80 Sticky Rx dead stop tool, which is also more accurate than the stupid chopstick trick.

As far as Daniel’s 10 year old post, I’d be willing to be that since he is the USA reseller of HE parts and tools, he’d probably now be a proponent of the TDC kit rather than the chopstick method.

 

I love watching them. Good or bad, it’s enjoyable because it’s at least about a car I am interested in as well. It also helped me finally pull the trigger on buying my own CS in 2022.

 

I do enjoy ratatossa wrenching on his daily driven regularly flogged cs.

 

Hey now, the ol’ finger over the spark plug hole has never let me down on my Jeep so it has to be good for Ferrari as well

 

Im 34 so probably on the younger end but I think they help.

yeah the clickbait stuff is stupid and unhelpful. Don’t watch it unless you want brainrot.

when I was looking for a car, all the reviews and repair videos helped me figure out which car worked best for me and also have good expectations going into it.

I probably wouldn’t be here without it.

 

Even if the video is wrong ..I may point someone to a specific part of the video to show how to remove a part of locate a part ...pic/video is worth a thousand words when helping someone fix there car

I don't rely on the intent of the video ...most don't have the proper procedures

 

The availability of DIY videos for F430s help convince me that it would be possible to wrench on the car with normal tools. People on here hate on NGSC, but his old wrenching videos made me more comfortable with not having a local independent shop.

Before I bought my old V8 Vantage it was the same thing with parts/information being readily available from redpants, in addition to 6speedonline.

Overall, I’d say they help.

 

Most are click bait and most don't offer any real tangible skills. Eric on the other hand at converted 4re makes great IG videos and is a real tech.

 

I absolutely respect and encourage the DIY ethos on these cars. But, to be clear, there are some extremely good local independents with deep Ferrari experience in the RDU area and across North Carolina, should you find yourself in a project that's beyond your in-house tools, timetable, or comfort level.

 

Do you have any recommendations in the RDU area? That would be an excellent resource to have. I know that Terry was very well recommended before he passed. Feel free to send a PM. Thank you!

 

I drive Ferraris every day. And, I watch YouTube every day. The reality is that normal maintenance and repairs of any Ferrari simply isn't interesting enough to generate enough views to make money, so the YouTubers do what they can to make it interesting and appealing to sponsors.

SamCrac has called me out personally on his vids for my comments. I love the vids, but as an owner who does all my own service work on multiple Ferraris, his points and choices are not realistic. Machining a oil cooler on an Aston Vantage instead of buying a low cost OEM unit, replacing a Ferrari oil filter with a $1.99 filter from Alibaba, rebuilding clutches for $1500 and reporting a $4K retail price on a clutch that is on sale at Scuderia for $1,999 for the entire kit, just doesn't make sense to a "real" owner like myself. This is why his content is surrounded by broken down supercars scattered all over a yard of waist-high grass. Same with Doug Demuro. His offensive review of the Maserati quattroporte was about how people buy them to "look rich" and called out specific issues that simply were not true. He pointed out how loose the cup holder was and made no sense, however the beat up example he rented from Turo clearly had the entire cup holder assembly ripped out! He then said the paddles were horrible as they interfere with the turn signal stocks - not mentioning of course that the entire steering column is straight out of the Ferrari 599/612 - cars that he praised on his channel!

The reality is that click bait is real and is the profit center of YouTube. Yes, it's entertaining, but for actual advice, this forum is far more helpful in the real world.

 

I've really got into a couple of (non-exotic!) American channels recently: Pole Barn Garage and Junkyard Digs. I have (or had, I do now) no interest in old American cars but I really enjoy watching these guys get these classics dug out of fields and barns and get them running again. And it's done, particularly in PBG's case, in a very basic home garage with tools and parts that anyone could have access to.

I do still watch them but I do wish Ratarossa would publish more videos. I watched the entire back catalogue of his early stuff, the more mechanical videos, during the COVID lockdowns and really enjoyed it. But the videos are really infrequent now and not as technical. A victim of the YouTube algorithm I guess.

*360

 

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