I started with a desk and Logitech Momo, then a wheel stand with a G27. At this point I went to triple screens and I built a wooden rig with a car seat. That lasted years and during that time I upgraded pedals to V2’s, which frankly were terrible (but people do swear by them), then Heusinkveld Ultimates. At this point the weakness in the rig and flex in the standard car seat started to reveal itself and I went all in with the SimLab P1X and a proper OMP racing seat and Direct Drive wheel. The last upgrade was VR. It’s been a 20 year long journey of much fun and many a threatened divorce along the way
I built a sim rig out of MDF and was able to buy a leather seat from a Ford Focus Titanium off craigslist for $20. Mounted my budget wheel, pedals and monitor to it. Have absolutely loved this setup since I built it in 2015. Takes up some space, but I just tucked it in a corner of a room and it's good to go.
@@bradyhill2136 Right now I just have a 55" TV on a folding table in front of my rig. Going triples by the end of the year so will have to come up with a different solution.
I found my seats on the side of the road, as someone had put them out for our annual 'big trash pick-up' day. They were a bit dirty, but got them cleaned up and now I have 2 seats taking up room waiting on me to build a similar rig as described by Brian.
Moving from a T300 wheel to a Fanatec CSL DD 8nm was a noticable improvement for me. The wider wheelbase (330mm vs 280mm) was nice, but the force feedback sensitivity was much better for me once I got the settings right in iRacing. I went from minimal understanding/recognition of tire behaviour to a much more intuitive understanding of how the tires were performing. I was MUCH better at catching a loose car, and elements like tiny bumps on the track became excellent physical markers for timing and reaction. I think my pedal upgrade to the v3 Clubsports was great, but I also think the CSL DD bumped my ceiling significantly. If there was a 1000iR coupon with my pedals, there was easily a 500iR coupon that came with the wheel upgrade, if not more. None of these, however, are good substitutes for time on the track, feedback from other races, and study in terms of watching better drivers in action.
Just upgrade my T300 pedals to V3's and it's a night and day difference. Have been eyeballing the DD pretty hard and think it's time to pull the trigger! What settings did you end up with?
I agree, a more expensive pedal was the single biggest difference with my sim racing experience. I haven't move on from my "budget" T150 steering wheel, but updating the setup with $250 Thrustmaster T-LCM Pedals was... wow. Huge improvement with my brakes for short tracks and road courses. Much more consistent with my inputs. I think the sweet spot is the budget steering wheel and a mid-tier pedal like your V3 or my T-LCM.
Yeah I agree the budget wheel mid tier pedal is a great setup for an “enthusiast” maybe once someone’s as lost in the sauce as I am the fancy stuff becomes worth… but I don’t like change haha
Just bought a T-LCM set myself, arriving soon enough. Still on a G29, but as others have mentioned that frankly doesn't matter as much as a good set of pedals, lol
I started just over a year ago with a Logitech g920 on a desk. I fell down the rabbit hole with upgrades, now I have an aluminum profile rig, DD wheel, V3 pedals. I do love my setup, but honestly I’m not any faster. I’m more consistent, and I think for road racing, pedals are the single biggest upgrade you can make.
Driving force GT FTW! I used the same wheel for the first 7 years I was on iracing. I just recently switched to a McLaren GT3 wheel with a CSL DD and I don't think it's made me any faster. I'm a paraplegic so I use the clutch paddles as hand controls and compared to my old hand controls which were Xbox 360 controller triggers, it's a huge upgrade. So pretty similar to what you were saying about your pedal upgrade being worth it. I don't think it necessarily has made me faster but I feel more consistent now. Also it's worth saying that the look and feel of my wheel makes me more excited to use it. When it comes down to it though a good driver on a bad setup will always be faster than a bad driver on a good setup.
That’s awesome yeah I definitely saw your consistency the last time we raced. It does seem like better equipment will help refinement of skills but you can learn up to a fairly high level on just about anything
Very good video. I agree that the wheel itself is probably the least important part of an upgrade. There are guys at very high levels still running a G27, the wheel that never dies. I've heard consistently that pedals are the most important upgrade and after studying the topic rather thoroughly I'd agree. My next upgrade if I ever get the free money will be pedals, though I've been looking at heusinkvelds more than fanatec especially since I invested in a very solid NLR Gttrack rig that they can bolt right into.
I use a 32” curve Samsung screen I got for 350.00 Thrustmaster TX wheel. An I bought the neat deluxe stand for 150.00 An I built a table stand thingy out of random 2x4s an an old shelving I found in the back of my garage. Freaking works awesome for me. If I know myself, I’ll be running that setup forever.
when i think of myself i gone from t150 on my desk to t300 to a ts-pc racer and t-lcm pedals in a diy 8020 rig in one year after starting simracing and it make a significant difference . and for oval i bought a 350mm deepdish realcar racing wheel xd
I will say my number one upgrade was getting an ultra wide monitor. It’s not quite as good as triple monitors because of the angles. But it makes me really feel like I’m in the car even though I’m just driving on my desk.
True that. Got an Acer 32:9 myself a while back, and I think it's all-good for racing. Only downside is the number of other games I have that don't really support ultrawide normally and can be a pain to set up with that in mind. Perfect for iRacing and most other race sims though.
I have a G29 clamped to a very rickety desk with the pedals underneath and what bugs me the most is the pedals. The brake has this rubber block in it that simulates a load cell, but the block isn’t long enough so when you press the pedal down, it goes to like 35% before you hit the rubber part. I hate the weird two-stage effect it has. I’m a musician so we’re all about getting new gear and how it might make you better, but most of all I think better instruments in particular can be a real teaching tool. My teacher in college would loan me his instrument to play on for a week and it was so interesting taking what I learned from that nice instrument back to mine. You quickly get a sense of what’s holding you back.
I was a percussionist back in school so I know exactly what you’re talking about. Side note when I try to find a line in iracing I usually think of my inputs in terms of “beats” like “I need to brake a beat later” or something
@@DJYeeJay I can totally see you being a percussionist! I feel like I know you from somewhere lol! I noticed that when I first watched your Legacy Pocono guide. It’s surprisingly consistent and better than just saying “Brake a bit later”
@@samdajellybeenie14 maybe we were in the same high school band 😂 Music has honestly helped me a ton with racing, I might make a vid about it one day. Using engine noise and pitch has always been super important to me. Also some drum set experience probably didn’t hurt the pedal skills lol
@@DJYeeJay I legitimately think sim racing has made me better at playing quickly, improved me reflexes or something. Probably not, but I wouldn’t be surprised. Please make that video, I’d love to hear your thoughts on it!
I had a g920 with a next level racing wheel stand light as my first rig. It was awesome, that alone got me hooked on sim racing but you start to notice the weak points after a while. I got a better job and recently splurged on my dream setup for my 26th birthday and it was probably the best money I’ve spent and I do not regret it. New setup: Moza R9 XP1 pedals GT1 EVO rig FSR wheel NRG Seat I say all that to say, I love my new setup but do not get it twisted I had so much fun on the G920 and I actually still want one just for nostalgia lol
Thanks for this vid. I was going back and forth about what to buy for my setup. I could have bitten the bullet and jumped into a top notch fanatec setup without destroying my finances, but my concern was that I would spend all the money and decide sim racing just wasn't my thing. I settled on a Thrustmaster T248. Having read endless reviews, it seemed like the T248 was a good compromise between buying a low quality wheel that I hated and spending a fortune and not liking the sport. So far it has been fun, and I've learned how little I know about controlling an actual race car. I'm still in 'just doing laps' phase of my career because I don't want to be 'that guy' that gets on the track and causes utter chaos... every lap. Once I have a few more laps under my belt, I look forward to seeing everyone out on the tracks.
That's a good plan. I always recommend people don't jump into crazy gear when they start, because with mid and low end gear you can always resell for like 80% of what your bought it for these days when you upgrade.
Great vid mate, agreed. I use an old Logitech G25 for all my iRacing content on my channel. I just have a natural feel for it now, but brakes are always an issue with the older wheel sets.
I ran a playseat challenge with a T150 and a single monitor for a year and got over 2K road & oval iR. The two things that helped were load cells (TLCM) and a 49 ultrawide. I literally couldn’t see the apexes at cota with a single so had to upgrade.
Upgrading from the shittiest 2000s bin hardware, all the way to modern DD is the best thing. Back then, i bought a thrustmaster rgt, from my birthday money, but the ac adapter for ffb was broken, and i didn't knew better too, lol. I figured it out like 2 weeks later and got a refund, but they had nothing in stock. That threw me off my simracing career, and i invested in my dirtjump bicycle or something. 😊
I couldn't agree more about not needing force feedback. I cut my teeth in NR2003 with a TSW2 I still own & wouldn't hesitate to break out if something happened to my Fanatec. To this day no one has been able to explain how having the wheel jumping around in your hands is going to be faster than you know, not. Obviously this is assuming your aim is to be a faster sim racer and not to use the sim as a training tool for real life.
I used a Momo steering wheel and pedals for 20 years, starting with NR2003 and kept it until it broke in 2018. That's when I upgraded and put them on a stand.
I think there are only two things that have actually made me more competitive in sim racing: load cell pedals (i can see why it wouldn't matter on ovals) And virtual reality (being able to see depth and look side to side is pretty sweet) I won't lie though, every upgrade I purchased I purchased purely for immersion. Having a fancy direct drive wheelbase won't magically make you faster, but it sure as hell feels soooooo good.
my friend and I took the rubber block out of the brake cut it in half and put them back in. still super soft but it gives some really solid resistance when you're about to bottom out the pedal.
I started with single 24" monitor but i couldn't see anything except what was right in front of me and I couldn't do what some are doing ie. turning the camera. Also I didn't have space for triplet so I bought VR head set and have not regretted. Picture quality might not be as clear as with monitor but you can actually 'see' the depth ie. how far the car/wall is and you can turn head to look around.
I am soon gonna upgade to the newest fanatec set because i dont really trust my old t300 deu to age and bent internals, i am also gonna get a new seat deu to my length and because it is an verry old one. But i totally agree with all you statements about you not having to upgrade to be competitive. Love your content btw
I would have to disagree with you on certain points. I started with Logitech Driving Froce GT as well, but I focused on road racing instead of ovals. Switched to T300 with open wheel addon steering wheel and T-LCM load cell brake pedals with full GT Omega cockpit with GT omega chair RS9. The thing is, that you DON'T NEED load cell brake pedals for ovals, you just don't. For road racing, it can help you IF you're using full cockpit, I used VR as well and then load cell brake pedals are amazing, BUT it's not necessary for oval racing. Since you don't need to be as precise on the braking as you need to be during Imola, SPA, Kyalami etc. You can be as competitive with cheap set up, I wouldn't say that improvement in my consistency got that much better from Logitech dfgt to Thrustmaster T300, practice did. Important thing is to get comfortable with you setup, learn the car, the track and it will come to you. That being said, I sold my full cockpit rig with VR just to buy a wheel that I can clamp to my desk. Ironical isn't it? If you want to upgrade there are 3 important things to know: - First of all, there are 3 types of wheels, gear driven, belt driven and direct drive. I've used gear driven Logitech dfgt and belt driven Thurstmaster T300 and to be honest, it's smoother, but there is no big difference between them. So whichever you have, if you want to upgrade, direct drive wheel is the only option, other ones are too similar to be worth investing it. Stick with whichever you already have. - Secondly. Brake pedals, yes load cell is great, but to be able to be consistent with them to the highest level, you have to have full cockpit, otherwise distance might be different every time you use it, sitting position might change, it might slip when you apply pressure etc. Basically go all in or just don't bother to buy them, cause they do indeed cost as much or even more than wheel itself. - Thirdly.. Just have fun, try to be as consistent as you can be, gear is not everything. Find road races/ovals that you like and just enjoy them. I burned out myself with my "hardcore setup" with full cockpit and vr so much that I haven't used it for a year and when tried it again few days ago.. I understood that I overdone it.. sold everything and ordered Moza r5 DD wheel to clamp on my table and try to enjoy racing as I used to.. not just try to be "as hardcore as I can be"..
I am still using my Logitech G923 wheel for nearly 2 years. I started having some troubles with the pedals so I upgraded to Heusinkveld Sprints and they made a big difference. I had enough room available so I upgraded from single monitor to triple 27" monitors pretty quick. I just built my rig out of 4x2 pine and some mdf boards and bought a car seat from a wreakers. If I upgrade to a DD wheel I am not sure how the DIY rig will handle that, so I will probably need to upgrade to a metal rig at the same time.
I just got a fanatec dd pro last week after almost 10 years on my G27. Funny I won 2 and got a 2nd on my last 3 truck races I ran with the G27 at Michigan.
Still love the driving force GT. When you shit all over people who spent 2000$ on a set up with something so cheap, it is always a good feeling. Mine was free from a friend when he upgraded to a T150. One of the clamps was broken, so I had to use 3M command strips to essentially velcro it to my desk while also re-seating it every 10 laps or so to keep it from flying off in my hands. I used it with decade old PCs that also got donated from friends who worked in PC repair and had enough spare junk laying around to build a functional PC. Same friend that gave me the DFGT also hooked me up with his T150 when he upgraded to a T300. Just this year finally got a current PC and have seen not tangible advantage it has given me aside from less blinking. 2:36 I agree, the DFGT pedals are a turd factory. I stuck a couple of foamy stress squishers under the brake and that helped immensely to get some sort of feel that I could use as a baseline for what I was on the travel axis. But with the T150, I got the T300 pedals because dude wanted to keep his 3rd pedal, the potentiometer(?) in the brake is not in the correct orientation, so I get nothing in the first 10 degrees of travel, then it automatically jumps to the 11~ish point and slams the brake to that point instead of a gradual grab. I was going to tear it down and reset the positioning on the gears to it would register the full range, but then I knocked the lid off my cookie jar and am no longer confident I could do it without trashing the pedals. I dig the thoughts on direct drive, as I was thinking that may be my next step. Especially on super speedways, when I take a push, it may or may not send me out of the no mans land I am in between teeth on the gear and it skips it into that next root circle and sends me veering off one way or the other. Been thinking that direct drive would be a bit better since it doesnt run off of gears that have an unknown tolerance. VR should be fun, but with my head injury and subsequent brain surgeries, after about 3 minutes it starts to feel like the skull patch they put in is about to pop off, so I run on a single ultrawide. 11:27 I really wish I would hear more people emphasize this point, but it seems like everyone is sponsored by a high end company to push their products as that magic bullet that will make people faster just for spending the money. However, it does ultimately put more of that type of equipment on the secondary market for good prices when people realize it was wasted money and they just might not be as good as they thought. Also loving the nerd drip there. While I was 'too old' for Pokemon when it came out, I do still have some childhood favorites that I still dabble in because it makes me happy, and wont shit on something I know nothing about if it is making someone else happy. Also, too old for Pokemon is a laughable concept, but I was at the place in my life where the people in charge were real hard on leaving childish stuff behind.
These days I’m glad it’s more acceptable to enjoy whatever the heck you like. I’m already weird enough for liking NASCAR in the Pacific Northwest, so pokemon is the more normal thing lol
I would say you can drive competively with something like G29/T300 and T-LCM/V3 pedals, but it will be easier with DD wheel and load cell pedals. I had T300 and upraged to simagic alpha mini and ffb is more responsive and its the biggest bonus in my opinion. I can feel faster that my rear loses grip and can make adjustments to my steering faster. I would recommend to buy load cell pedals before moving to DD wheels if you are not buying both at the same time. After all i would say load cell pedals is biggest improvement after ffb wheel.
Winning on ovals requires a lot of saving tires. Anything you can do to make that easier/more efficient will increase your chances of success. That is where I have to disagree with this video. Granted I'm a lowly 2k oval racer so maybe I'm blowing smoke, but having a larger wheel is going to help with precision and saving tires. Of course you can still have a budget set up and have a larger wheel. Such as a T300 with their 330mm Sparco rim or a Fanatec CSL DD and their Nascar Rim. You, yourself would probably benefit from getting a larger wheel. It may be the very thing to push you into Pro if you're not quite there yet. There's a reason why they use 15 inch steering wheels in stock cars and it's not to try simulating driving a bus.
@@DJYeeJay All that separates every racer is milliseconds. DD wheels have a faster response time. I started iRacing on a belt driven wheel and switched to a DD about 2 years later. I immediately got better at catching slides. On a personal note. Thank you again for your videos. Your helpful tips have made me better at ovals.
I know you can't really run iracing with a controller and be competitive but I've actually been playing racing games so long especially the more Sim based ones is the vibration feedback and know how the car will behave based on the frequency of the vibration
Where can se show our setups 😊 Logitech G923 Used Obutto Cockpit with Sparco seat(200$cad) 34" ultrawide. (3440x1440) Gaming PC with a 11990k and 3080 12gb Hardlined Watercooled.
Not making any friends in the high-end SIM Racing equipment world are we? 😊 But, I agree with ya. Does it take thousands of dollars worth of gear to be good at SIM Racing...........Obviously NO. I've been in SIM Racing since the early days of PC based SIMs........like NASCAR 98 and Thrustmaster Formula T1 early. Got out of it mid-2000's and watching the Cup guys do the online racing during COVID sparked my interest again. So, after what a 15 year hiatus I am basically a noob, only because the sophistication and complexity of the SIMs had increased exponentially. The Formula T1 had a bungee cord wrapped around a spool for centering and tension plus I think it had about 270° of range. The pedals weren't bad, but still just as lifeless as the wheel. But, it was the best that was out there. Getting back into SIM Racing, started out with a TM TMX Pro and T3PA pedal set. That was awsome. In iRacing, went from Rookie to B-Class using that setup and won a few faces along the way, beating guys with WAY more expensive gear. Going to VR (for me) created biggest jump in on track performance. I guarantee that I gained 2 to 3 seconds of lap times in both Oval and Road after going to the headset. Having that depth of field and being able to judge distances was a game changer.
I started sim racing 5 years ago on a Xbox with a g920. 1 year ago I bought my pc and got iRacing. On iRacing I can only go 70% throttle but on the road side of things I can still beat 4-5k iRating people. In oval I can only beat max 3k iRating person
After the latest announcement that iRacing lost the Indy license I'm much less inclined to build a superior racing setup for iRacing. It's just not worth it now. iRacing needs to wake the heck up!
Quick question about your chair. Do you have wheels on that thing or nah? Or what do you do do you stay in a static position for your pedals? I agree on the cheaper setup. You can go down the rabbit hole a bit I feel like I was almost better with my cheap thrustmaster t150 and laptop single monitor than I am now with upgrades galore.
My chair is just a decent ergonomic office chair with wheels. With thick enough carpet it is no issue if I was on thin carpet or hard floor I’d have to Jerry rig up some sort of anchor
I race on a laptop have my petals taped to the floor and I’m using a shelf desk thing to hold my wheel. I have a small box so I can have my laptop right in front of me.
@@Polarbear227t Haha, that's how I started! I had a gaming laptop, but quickly got a 29 inch curved and did that setup for 8 years with a G27 up until about May this year! Now VR and DD.
I The upgrade from a belt driven wheel to a direct drive wheel waas the same sort of difference I got from upgrading to a decent set of pedals with a budget wheel. Budget wheels have deadzones, inconsistent force feedback, inconsistent input, etc etc. The list goes on. The limitations are huge and will teach slow habits as the driver is fighting the hardware. Worse, if you intend to drive for real, a vehicle behaves nothing like a belt driven wheel. Belt driven wheels are just inferior.
@@DJYeeJay With my Thrustmaster just going straight is an issue. The large-toothed gears that drive the wheel have a certain level of play to them. It is very inconsistent if that play will let you control the machine or not. So, I am forced to slow and accelerate more slowly than I would if I had more consistent controls. Exiting corners is where it really falls apart. As soon as those forces kick in deadzones randomly grow or shrink. All in all, the ballet like finesse that ovals require is just not coming from these kind of wheels for me. The issue I think comes down to material quality. None of these hybrid/belt drive wheels use very good internals. Lots of cheap, flexible plastic.
@@worstplayerusw5025 Interesting thanks! I keep my steering ratio as large as possible to get as much of that precision as possible but I can see how on DD you can get that and better on any ratio.
@@DJYeeJay That used to be my solution, but that starts to feel like shit as the tires heat up. Im looking for realistic ratios (720 tops) when I race as I also race for practice irl. Then again, you mentioned you dont race irl, so I suppose my point is a little moot lol.
@@DJYeeJay So I finally I have this set up dialed in and the new wheel shaved a good 1-2 seconds off all my times, I suggest you might want to revist this video if you ever try a REALLY budget wheel like a T150 and make the transition to a DD Pro
Thank you because honestly, iracing is not worth spending tons of money just on the equipment. Love my Logitech dfpro (doesn't have the gt logo) and despite being old and second hand (the box advertised compatibility for the then new ps3 back in 06) does a good job even with ffb
I'm a bit nervous to upgrade my pedals to the V3's. I've seen a lot of people say you need a rig or else they will kick up when you press the brake etc. Do you have this issue?
i calibrate my pedals in a way to where the max brake is the moment the pedals start kicking up. I find it's enough range for me even then. Right now they're just on carpet and no issues for me
Hey Justin curious it looks like you are running the G920 wheel, I had a G29 (the Plastic gear case self destructed on me) then a G920 and could not get rid of the 5-8° of dead zone or free play how did you get rid of that or did you just get used to it? I got real lucky and a Member in our NW League sent me a bunch of his old Sim items a couple wheels, few pedals etc and I fixed a couple issues with the T300RS and been using it for almost 2 years now (to me it along with using irFFB has been a huge improvement. The best though was getting the Thrustmaster T-LCM pedals with the Load cell brake as well as the Hall Effect (Magnetic) Throttle and clutch I no longer have the dreaded Potentiometer problems. Matter of fact I have not had a single issue other then throttle spring breaking since I changed to the T-LCM Pedals. Love your videos keep up the great work They are appreciated.
Hmmm I’m fairly certain I don’t have that deadzone on my wheel. If that’s able to be changed anywhere it would be in the Logitech Ghub program. I haven’t used irFFB before but I’ve heard good things about it
@@DJYeeJay That's interesting as Both Frank Harris and I found it to have this dead Zone (Where the FFB was Low or Non existent though it seemed to read the encoder info correctly)
Well what number would you say? My point is if you are a 1600 don’t think dropping 2K a cockpit, better wheels/pedals and triple monitors you are going to become a 2000+ with the same dedication.
@@chasingliberty1776 hmmm I’d say you can get to 4k without great execution if you have the right fundamentals. A lot of people up to that range can get there by executing at a high level but not necessarily doing the right thing. I think equipment upgrades are only worth it if execution is holding someone back. Pedals first for sure, then wheel
when I see your level it is very inspirating... very impressive.. no excuse for everybody with high price materiel.. I hope it s a fake but I dont think so 😅 I dont understand how you could be so precise with a moving chair. clap clap clap very very strong level 👍👍
@@DJYeeJay I had my rolling chair on tile for about 2 years, I had to wedge a towel under the wheels once I rolled into racing position. Only downfall was extra steps to get out when emergency pooping time happened.
