My New DIY Racing Chassis

[MrDavid5465]

Hello there!
Welcome to this thread which is a build-log of my racing chassis. It will be made of MDF mostly with a little ply wood and couple 2x4s thrown in.

I printed the plans today and while I was cutting out the templates I realized that I had inadvertently made the design modular. So I drew up an alternative wheel and pedal mount for an authenticish F1 position Right now I only plan on building the GT seating position Another cool thing is that the wheel deck assembly can be detached and used as a wheel stand with an office chair if I need to.

And so without further ado here are some pictures!

 

[LMSCorvetteGT2]

Not bad, I assume the base is hollow and just 5 parts together, but why did you go this route and what do you plan to make it out of?

 

[MrDavid5465]

Not bad, I assume the base is hollow and just 5 parts together, but why did you go this route and what do you plan to make it out of?

The coloured parts are 3/4" MDF and the Base is 2x4's and plywood. I chose to make it out of wood because I don't have metal working tools available to me. I saw the RS1 and I liked the design and sturdiness of it so I modified it.

 

[MrDavid5465]

So today I got the wheel stand portion of my Chassis built today. I would have had the shifter mount done but my jigsaw"s blade broke on me. I think that I am going to change my design for my shifter mount though. Something to accommodate a mouse better and hopefully big enough for my XL qck mousemat. I'm really impressed with how it has turned out so far, it's as sturdy as a tank! I also attached the pedal board although you cannot see it very well in the last pic.

 

[MrDavid5465]

I made my shifter mount, but it wound up being too big and a little too far to the right. Back to the drawing board I guess

 

[MrDavid5465]

Modified the shifter mount, which was too long, and now the shifter itself is exactly where I want it. The whole thing is really wobbly right now due to the weight on it, I really need to get the base built next! I reverse mounted my pedals as well.

 

[MrDavid5465]

So I built the base and with the help of my wonderful Grandmother, Wrapped it in this faux suede stuff I found in the clearance section at Fabricland.



One concern I had when I reverse mounted my pedals was that the tiny wires would become damaged, especially since I have been moving it around almost daily as I get through the stages of the build. So I just mounted the wire similarly to the way it was in the pedal case.

Yesterday when I was racing, I kept on finding that my left foot had no comfortable place to rest, So I put together some scraps and made a dead pedal. I literally cut no new pieces. I think that the triangles were from the mdf on the base and the platform for my foot was from the new supports for the shifter mount.


The shifter mount is now properly supported and is wrapped in the same faux suede as the base. I really like this material, It feels nice and I won't have to mess with awkward mousepads. Also the material completely hides the ugly hole I cut for the shifter and it hugs the shifter a bit, which is nice.

I did a bunch of sanding today as well. I'm coming up to the final leg of this race!


I need to get/make a keyboard tray. I saw someone use a fully articulating tv mount with a couple boards to hold their keyboard. Props to that person, I forgot who it was, but if I do find that person, I will give the credit where it is due.

Please leave your feedback guys! this thread is lonely!

 

[Firehuntah]

Looks great, I like that suede stuff. Pretty nice how you placed the shifter inside of that plate also.

 

[MrDavid5465]

Thanks, I made the template for the cut using cardboard.

 

[MrDavid5465]

I found out who had the keyboard tray idea, It was Tucker73 as seen here

 

[MrDavid5465]

So, here is the BIG update =] My rig is pretty much complete. Once I got the monitor mount built, I was able to paint the main part of the rig without having to stop using my computer during painting. I will update the first post with glory shots later tonight.


The biggest hardware change is the monitors. I had 24" Acer TN panels but they did not have vesa mounts or HDMI. So I switched them out for 27" LG IPS panels that had all the features that I wanted.


The monitor mount. Built with 2x4's, some shelf brackets, some caster wheels so that I can move it back and forth easily and some tripp-lite tv wall mounts. Each joint can be tightened which allows me to be able to swing the left monitor like a door for easy entry and get it right back into position easily.

The wheel stand which is now painted. I'm really pleased with how the colour turned out. The paint was quite a bit lighter when it was wet. I wrapped the actual wheel deck in carbon fiber vinyl I also changed a couple of the supports for the shifter mount. this change gives the whole rig a more open appearance. Each of the supports have been wrapped in carbon fiber vinyl.

As you may have noticed by now, there are red LED's on the rig. The first pic is showing the LED controller.

I also got a new wheel. It's an ebay cheapy wrapped in real suede. I'm impressed with the quality considering that it was only $40 CAD The wheel's black dye for the suede rubs off, hopefully it will stop doing that after a while but that doesn't really bother me that much. It's a 320mm wheel and I was able to put the stock g27 buttons on it (I had to remove some material form the back of the button mounts so that I could fasten them in place). I also left the shift lights in place. The wheel is held on a DSD wheel adapter with DSD extended paddles to match. I put some carbon fiber vinyl on the adapter and paddles. I just wish that the paddles were more solid and were a little bit closer.