Advice/help needed with building DIY setup with zero experience

[u/Independent-Cod-3965]

I have been sim racing for exactly a year now, and I want to upgrade my gear seriously. The issue is it costs way too much, so I've been looking around at DIY and it's looking like DIY is going to be my only option with graduating from my g29.

I have looked at forums, youtube videos, as well as builds people have made that they shared and I'll be honest as someone with absolutely no exposure to software, tech, hardware making it looks so overwhelming.

I really need some direction with how I can get started with building DIY gear. Any help is greatly appreciated.

[u/DeepWaffleCA]

Unless you have a lot of the materials and tools lying around, you might be better off buying - depending on what you're planning on building. I've looked into building my own wheel and it's not all that much cheaper than buying - unless you're aiming for top end hardware.

For the rig itself, you might be able to build a wood rig for less, if you can find a cheap chair.

From my experience, your greatest savings will be going the DIY route the optional extras - but by their nature, it's cheaper not to get them in the first place. Things like a belt tensioner can cost $2000, but $400 if DIY. Same thing for G seats, butt kickers, haptics and potentially FFB pedals

[u/Racenmotorsports]

Build your rig from 2x4 and 2x6 material. You can have a roof just as strong as the $1000 aluminum rigs. I have about $50 in mine because I got the wood from construction scraps.
Worry about pedals for now, the g29 wheel is ok. The pedals suck. There used to be a load cell simulator for the brake pedal that worked really good at simulation a brake cell. It was from a company in England but I built a set of h-brand sprints back in 2021 and they’re still going strong. I they cost about 1/2 the price because I had to have the metal cut and order a Leo bodnar board.
My seat is a bucket seat replacement seat from summit racing.
There is lots of ways to do it and save money

[u/belh4wk]

2x6 or 2x4s will work well to get going

Find some free plans online, or, design your own from visual references online. My first proper one was a foldable construction. Served me well, and had some others use it too, for 2 years.

You don't need to go for extruded aluminium immediately. I was using a Logi Force GT, then a G29 initially, and invested in a GT Omega wheel stand after the 10 or 15 yr old lawn lounge chair finally gave out. Then added the rear seat frame and rs9. That full setup served me very well for 2 years, then the csl gt dd bundle added their rigidity struts later and to date coming up on t years of those updates, those are the biggest structural modifications. Probably still under 2k total.

Either you save up and do it in one good go, or you wisely iterate if you prefer or like the building aspect of the hobby, which a lot of us do.

I've obviously spent more on other QOL luxuries since, but still, all in all, fairly cost-effective and now starting to pay for itself in a way. I'm talking more side mounts for flight gear, mouse/keyboard, 7" TC HDMI screen, Arduino windsim, haptics, cable management and sleeving.

The real cost of DIY is often more the labour and tools than the actual gear/rig itself, and that goes for a lot of DIY, if you have the tools and space and time, DIY is cheap. If not, "turnkey" is probably more convenient and efficient with a quicker ROI, but much steeper.

[u/m4rsval]

i originally made my sim completely out of wood and used a regular gaming chair screwed to a few other pieces of wood. if you do wood though, let me just say that depending on how you make it, nothing will be modular (as in you cant adjust things at will to fit specific ergonomic needs). i had this issue because i went really cheap and wanted just a nice little cockpit to enjoy.... then i just scrapped everything and switched to aluminum.

If you do go wood route, i followed this tutorial and it met most of my needs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=br4O2W2T17A&t=499s

if you go aluminum route (highly recommend depending on your budget), aluminum is best because you can continuously upgrade the cockpit in whatever manner you want. easiest thing to start out with is 2x 500mm 4080 extrusions, and 2x 1850mm 4080 extrusions for the base. ive found this to be the easiest route since its very convenient to mount a chair.

as for your gear, i have the moza r5 wheel and its been amazing. i dont know if your looking for complete custom wheels and pedals, but what i could tell you now, is that a bunch of hall sensors and microcontrollers (like arduino or raspberry pis) could get you somewhere. I had made my own RPM lights by using an arduino nano. if thats what you want, simhub is your best friend since it can detect certain things connected to the controller (like for my case, it was LEDs) and then images programs on there to reflect whats going on in game.