F1Design.us Sim Racing Cockpit

F1 Racing Simulation Cockpit Based On The Ferrari F2002

This is my DIY racing SIM. I got several good ideas from the Race Sim Central Forum. I have been playing racing games off and on for several years. I wanted to upgrade my current set up to something more F1 inspired. By looking at what was commercially available and what other home builders had built I came up with the following.

It is built from MDF mostly with a lot of screws and a gaming seat that I bought from Best Buy. Along with that I am using the Logitech Momo Wheel. In the event anyone wants to build one like it I caution you to take your time and use proper safety equipment when working with MDF, power tools and paint. The possibility to have allergic reactions or worse with the MDF dust and the paint fumes require that you use breathing and eye protection. Also with the power tools use common sense and eye protection at all times.

I have made some more progress on this SIM. As you can see by the pictures below I have it in it's full colors. I painted it a bright Ferrari F1 red. It is a more orange color than the color of the road cars. Since I didn't have a real F1 car to compare it to I just matched the color to one of my F2002 models to get as close as I could. It turns out that Sherwin Williams has a color called "fireworks" that is almost perfect.

After getting the proper color I decided to add some carbon fiber accents to the outside and the inside as well. Also the inside of the foot well and the seating area where carpeted with a speaker box carpet that is stretchy and attaches very easily with spray adhesive. I bought the carpet from www.PartsExpress.com as well as some other supplies for the bass shakers that we will see later on. In the photos below you can see the SIM is a two piece design for easy moving and storage. Also it assembles easily by just sliding it together.

I have installed the Controls plus the PC and Monitor. Also you will note the two smaller control boxes on either side. the one on the right contains the master power switch and the start button for the PC. The control on the left has two amplifiers I built. One is to drive my headphones to allow on the fly volume control. The second drives the input of the shaker amplifier, again so I can control the effects level during the game.

The livery is installed and it is ready to race. It is wearing the F2002 livery since that is the car that gave me the inspiration. Well there isn't much more to say so here are the pictures!

I found a used Belkin Nostromo N50 on eBay. I took the time over the holiday to rip it apart and build a few button boxes with it. It went very smooth except for a little bit of cross talk with the long cables. I was able to isolate it and currently it is running with no problems. It really adds to the realism!

I took the unit apart so I could get to the PCB and attach some new wires and the two new button boxes. I now have the most common controls at my finger tips that were once trapped on the keyboard. The addition of a handy launch control and brake bias is the best.