Modified Bob Earl Racing VRC Mk2

[acascianelli]

I've read many people say that the Bob Earl Racing is very customizable, but I'm having a hard time coming up with ideas of modifications to try on mine. Does anyone have pictures/links of modifications done to the Bob Earl Racing VRC Mk2 chassis?

The only thing I can think of doing to mine is making a plate to fit onto the shifter mount to put my Logitech Trackball and maybe a keyboard.

 

[Mayaman]

C'mon my friend, let that imagination loose!

I went to home depot and got 6 2x4 wood cut to the width of the chassis. You wood glue these together, 3 stacked for front and rear. You drill a hole through the chassis and run a long enough bolt so that it goes through the chassis and through the 2x4s and secure with Nut and washers.

Then you go to CenturySprings.com, order 4 350lb springs of about 6 inches in length, drill countersunk holes into the 2x4s at the corners and insert the Springs with a mallet. Cut a broom stick to the length of the springs and insert inside the springs to keep them from ever moving to far past their center of gravity.

Add rubber washing machine dampner feet and presto, you have a poor mans motion rig. You would be surprised how awesome this actually is as your inertia creates some pretty cool movements when steering and braking.

Also it lifts up your chassis quite a bit letting you get in easier.

 

[acascianelli]

I like that idea of creating a base for the whole rig to get it off the ground a little bit. I might try that.

 

[LostRacer]

Interesting idea..

 

[LostRacer]

C'mon my friend, let that imagination loose!

I went to home depot and got 6 2x4 wood cut to the width of the chassis. You wood glue these together, 3 stacked for front and rear. You drill a hole through the chassis and run a long enough bolt so that it goes through the chassis and through the 2x4s and secure with Nut and washers.

Then you go to CenturySprings.com, order 4 350lb springs of about 6 inches in length, drill countersunk holes into the 2x4s at the corners and insert the Springs with a mallet. Cut a broom stick to the length of the springs and insert inside the springs to keep them from ever moving to far past their center of gravity.

Add rubber washing machine dampner feet and presto, you have a poor mans motion rig. You would be surprised how awesome this actually is as your inertia creates some pretty cool movements when steering and braking.

Also it lifts up your chassis quite a bit letting you get in easier.

Do you have any old picture of this setup?

 

[Mayaman]

Do you have any old picture of this setup?

Yup, let me find them. It was a cool rig for its day.

She served me well, this was my first projector rig, which led to this bad boy

 

[Mayaman]

 

[LostRacer]

Thank you!! Thats pretty sweet. Thats my future. lol

 

[acascianelli]

I'm really curious how that poor mans motion rig idea would feel.

Also, how well did the VRC work as a flight sim platform with two shifter mounts?

 

[Mayaman]

I'm really curious how that poor mans motion rig idea would feel.

Also, how well did the VRC work as a flight sim platform with two shifter mounts?

It felt great, I also had lots of friends who tried it and said the it felt like they were moving, even better when you add the butt kicker or simvibe. With a little I agination, very little money, you can do some pretty awesome things.

Under braking and steering, the rig moves slightly, giving the affect of motion. The virtualGT used this exact system before he moved on to Dbox. I really hope more of you try it, its cheap and it works pretty well. Remeber to get springs that are up to the job or they will collapse side ways, unless you use the broom stick inserts.

it worked wonderfully as a flight simulator.

 

[LeMansAid]

Maya-motion = good wobble.
Centre post = bad wobble.

I ended up with one of these units thrown in for free with other gear at one point and was shocked at what people clearly put up with. I ended up using a couple of curved pieces from a weight lifting bench, and a piece of the frame from the back of a fold-out chair to sure up the wheel deck. It made a world of difference.

If you have some kind of semi-circle structure that would fit, maybe even trying temporarily attaching (even taping) it to the underside of the deck, with the "legs" sitting on the floor to your right and left, just to see what you've been missing through instability. Try to have the centre post at near maximum upward flex when your weight is on the seat. Then, you may well feel motivated to sort out a permanent solution.

Another option would be to at least get rid of the up/down movement. Adding a straight line to change the centre post to a D shape instead of a U shape would help a lot in that respect. But the lateral movement will still be all too apparent.

I remember @fatkrakr pointing out how much detail can be lost, particularly with more powerful wheels.

 

[Mayaman]

Seems maybe you had one that was beat up because mine didn't do that. And you may call it wobble, but it did the job. It was better than static. Since the springs were strong enough, the wobble was minimal and only really enhanced the braking and steering. Like I said, before dbox, the virtualgt chassis used this exact same principal and that thing is 18k, for "wobble"back in the day.

I say if you're on a budget it is pretty great. Especially if you experiment with different springs.

The center post never got in the way of the pedals.

Have fun.

 

[LeMansAid]

Just to reiterate:

Maya-motion = good wobble.

I never minded in regards to the pedals, it's was just the flex for me. That profile at that length was never going to be stable.

 

[Mayaman]

I didn't know any better and it was my first rig. To be honest though it wasnt bad and the setup works great for flight sims with dual shifter mounts and the steering deck removed.

 

[acascianelli]

Upon further research, modding my VRC into a flight sim rig probably isn't going to happen. I just don't have the money to invest in a set of control sticks and pedals.

I started doing some research into making a plate for the shifter mount to mount a small keyboard and trackball. Haven't had much time to fab it up yet though. Not even sure if I'll be able to do it with the one shifter mount I have, might need to by another one.

 

[Mayaman]

The shifter mounts are cheap. Try used on ebay for saitek x51 flight stuff. Cheap

 

[acascianelli]

The shifter mounts are cheap. Try used on ebay for saitek x51 flight stuff. Cheap

Is a set of pedals not necessary?

 

[Mayaman]

Not really if the flight stick has twist, it acts as the rudders. But there are tons of flight pedals on Ebay used as well.

 

[LeMansAid]

And they're the kind of thing that plenty of people would buy but never use. So it's probably not too hard to find effectively new at a used price.