My Homemade Cockpit with Button Box, Aux/USB slots, Soon to be Ebrake

[diptob79]

Mate, just a small suggestion,, you might want to lower down the accelerator pedal a bit, to make it easier during hell n toe action

 

[gordie44]

Lovely setup dude,nice bit of thought gone into it

Thanks Tommyboy! (great movie btw )

Mate, just a small suggestion,, you might want to lower down the accelerator pedal a bit, to make it easier during hell n toe action

Thanks for your suggestion diptob!

I looked into it... when I was building the rig and mounting the pedals I did put some thought into placement as regards to heel and toe. I came up with this (a quote from another forum):

"When you press the brake pedal, it has to travel a certain distance for the brakes to engage. So at the end of the stroke of the brake pedal..it is relatively level w/ the gas pedal and you just move your heel [or edge of foot] over to tap the gas.

If they were both level..as you press the brake..you're gonna have to move your heel up again to hit the gas."

I never really found out how much lower it was supposed to be, and I guess I missed the part about the brake being level with the gas at the END of the brake stroke (or thereabouts). So I just mounted all the pedals evenly.

although you can't tell from the photos, the gas PEDAL is lower than the brake, although they're mounted the same height, the pedals have those black plastic pieces to raise the pedals from the surface of the pedal arms. so the gas pedal itself sits about 1.75cm (1/2") further away (forward) from the driver.

I will definitely look into lowering the mount of the gas pedal the next time I have enough motivation to disassemble the front end. (not that hard to do, just a pain in the butt)



Thanks again Diptob for your suggestion and I look forward to hearing any suggestions that others might have! no guarantee that I'll be able to implement them, but sharing ideas and solving problems are what forums are for

EDIT: does anyone have any ideas for increasing the thickness of those black pedal pieces? That way I can just bring the brake and clutch closer to me (or just the brake) instead of lowering the mounting of the gas pedal.

EDIT EDIT: I ended up just removing the black spacer that sits behind the gas pedal. This gives is a difference of almost 3.5cm/1". Feels a little weird and harder to blip the throttle, but I think it might be something to get used to

 

[gordie44]

Nice attention to detail, how heavy is it?

do the pieces move about at all while driving or do they sit firmly in place without sliding further apart?

I installed the Nixim v2 Brake and clutch mod a couple of days ago, and now my rig moves forward when I brake hard. I like the feeling of the mod, so I'm just going to have to hurry up and put my rig in the corner with the tv so it doesn't skootch forward any more.

 

[sesselpupser]

I installed the Nixim v2 Brake and clutch mod a couple of days ago, and now my rig moves forward when I brake hard. I like the feeling of the mod, so I'm just going to have to hurry up and put my rig in the corner with the tv so it doesn't skootch forward any more.

Wait, what? Isn't it attached to your seat? I've just looked back through your photos and I've only just noticed that you can't actually see for sure that it is, so I guess I'd assumed it was... I must admit that I haven't read the whole thread yet. I had a similar problem with mine where it would move sideways if I was using the H-shifter a little too vigorously. Attaching it to the seat solved that problem, surprisingly enough!

 

[Brock1Samson9]

Seeing your thread updates every few days is very painful. I've had to postpone my build so I can replace the computer that failed on me a few weeks ago. Not all bad though, I atleast have parts for my button box on the way now and my new computer will be about 20 times more awesome than the old one lol.

Keep up the good work Gordie, it's looking really good.

 

[stevenfilms]

What's the usb for? And what did you use to add the line on the top of the steering wheel, electric tape for something? I want to do that to mine. Awesome cockpit man.

 

[gordie44]

Wait, what? Isn't it attached to your seat? I've just looked back through your photos and I've only just noticed that you can't actually see for sure that it is, so I guess I'd assumed it was... I must admit that I haven't read the whole thread yet. I had a similar problem with mine where it would move sideways if I was using the H-shifter a little too vigorously. Attaching it to the seat solved that problem, surprisingly enough!

I built the rig in 3 separate pieces. 1)The footwell/wheel support 2) The Seat Base w/seat 3) The side console.

I kept the seat base separate because a)Ericleroi suggested that in his plans, and b) I needed to be able to move the seat out of the way when cleaning, etc.

If I could do it again, then the seatbase would have some method of temporarily attaching to the footwell, because of the aforementioned movement.

As for the Side console, it does move around a bit when shifting. It's a pretty heavy unit, but there can be a lot of force applied to the shifter (by over-enthusiastic friends) and thus it wiggles a bit in play. I don't notice it at all when I'm driving, only when I'm watching someone else drive. And I figure once I get the tactile installed on everything (one of these days) then everything will be wiggling and jiggling anyways lol.

I've had to postpone my build so I can replace the computer that failed on me a few weeks ago. Not all bad though, I atleast have parts for my button box on the way now and my new computer will be about 20 times more awesome than the old one lol.

Keep up the good work Gordie, it's looking really good.

Thanks Brock! Let me know if I can help at all I'm thinking of getting a computer eventually for iRacing, etc.

What's the usb for? And what did you use to add the line on the top of the steering wheel, electric tape for something? I want to do that to mine. Awesome cockpit man.

I added the USB slot (made out of two x 6 ft. USB extensions) to my side console so that whenever I wanted to save/overwrite my GT5 game save, I wouldn't have to make an awkward reach over my console, (possibly damaging my wheel from leaning on it while I'm off-balance).

It's also way easier to just pop in a USB stick to upload a movie or something as well. Before I had to squeeze between my cockpit and dresser and then awkwardly squat to reach the front of my console (It's a good thing I hardly ever have to remove the GT5 game disc )

I like that it adds a bit of 'realism' to my 'car' in that most modern (non race) cars have at least one AUX-in (mine has two and sometimes a USB in as well. 👍


And for the orange line, I used what I had around the house, which included some surveyors tape, brightly coloured orange stuff that looks like tape but is not sticky at all. I wrapped that around a few times and then used electrical tape (for its blackness) on either side to hold the orange down.

For you, as I assume you will have to go out and buy this stuff, I would recommend looking for coloured electrical tape, as it would be less for you to buy (one thing instead of two) and would give you a better selection of colours (I have seen yellow, green, red, orange, blue, etc)

 

[nofxmike06]

Awesome setup. Thanks for posting! I'm building one soon, myself. G27 Racing wheel will be the hardware.

 

[stevenfilms]

Did the MDF wood cut well with a jigsaw? I have a jigsaw myself, and I plan on building a wheel stand/cockpit this summer. You should replace you shift knob too btw, I think it would make your cockpit even better. It's the little things that add up sometimes haha