The $35 DIY Sim Racing Seat

   

    The goal of this project was to build an inexpensive sim racing setup to race your favorite sim racing games in.   By using a real car seat and placing the wheel and pedals in more natural positions the sim racing experience will be greatly improved.  There are commercial products available that accomplish this same goal of getting into the game even more, one of the most popular is at www.bobearlracing.com.  I wanted to try and make a racing sim setup myself for very little money.  In order to keep things cheap and simple I used a car seat taken from a junkyard and the frame was made with 2x4's.  You can see how others have created their own sim-racing setup here for even more ideas on how far you can take this and share your creations with others.   Some of the designs are quite detailed, however my goal was to build it simple and cheap.

Parts list

 

Selecting a seat (junkyard 101)

    Before you leave for that wonderful auto graveyard make sure you are ready and dressed appropriately, meaning don't wear anything you wouldn't want to get ruined including your shoes.   Most yards will require you to be wearing closed shoes or boots so no flip flops or sandals here. The tools required to obtain the seat will be very minimal and can be found in most homes, a small cheap socket set that contains both metric and standard SAE sockets, a pair of pliers and a phillips head screwdriver will most likely be all you need.   You might also wish to wear gloves or bring some rags to clean up a little after you are done.

    You can use any seat from any car you want to.  It just depends on how much or how little fabrication you want to do to get it to fit right.  The seat I used was from a first generation Acura Integra, I chose this seat because it was sporty, lightweight, comfortable and only required that I bend the mounting tabs down a little in order to bolt to the frame.  The good news is that the seats in most cars are already bolted to a raised flat surface in the car meaning choosing a seat bolted-in in this way should be easy to bolt to your sim racing frame which is constructed in a similar manner. Below are a few pictures to explain this better.

Here you see how the mounting tabs were positioned when I took them off the car

Here you see how I bent both the front and rear tabs at 90 degree angles 

Getting started

    The first thing you need to do is get an idea of how big of a base you need to build.  To get a good idea lean your pedals up against a stack of books or other object so the pedals are more vertical like they are in a real car.  The angle you need will depend on how the pedal base was designed, some are designed very well and will need little or no angle while others will need a pretty steep angle since they were designed to be pressed down on rather than the forward motion that you experience driving your own car. Next se the car seat on the floor in front of the pedals, if you are a tall person slide the seat slider all the way back with the lever built into the car seat, if you are shorter slide it up.  The goal here is to get the slider positioned correctly so that once the seat is bolted in place in the frame the built in seat adjustment will accommodate anyone who wishes to give your contraption a spin around the block so to speak.

    Once you have found the best seat to pedal distance you can measure for the size of frame to build.  You want the front of the frame to support the pedals at the right position, and the back of the frame should have the rear seat mounts bolted to it.  In my case this distance was 3 feet 7 inches. 

    Next decide how wide you want the frame to be.  The width needs to be at least wide as the seat rails are on your seat.  Also you should take into account how wide your steering wheel and pedals are and how wide you want the mounting surface to be.  I found that 20 inches seemed to be the best for me, I am 6'1" 225lbs so I'm not a small guy and I am perfectly comfortable with this dimension. 

 Building the frame

   Now that you have found what measurements will work for you go ahead and cut the two long side pieces and 3 of the short width pieces.  With a countersink drill bit go ahead and assemble the frame with the wood screws.  Make sure everything is square and lined up perfectly since this is what everything else builds upon so if you get this wrong everything will be wrong. You should end up with a nice strong perfectly square rectangle like this.

Bare frame screwed together

    Next measure the distance between the front and rear seat mounting holes on the slider brackets.  If you are lucky they will be the same distance on each side.  If they are not the same distance you may have to add some more wood or get creative and fabricate something more intricate.  It would be a good idea to take a measuring tape with you to the junkyard also to try and avoid this problem if at all possible.  Once you have the measurement you need you can screw in the third small piece you cut, using the measurement you took measure from the rear of the frame to the front of your middle support board that you are installing so the tabs of the seat rails will go over the boards on either side.  Here are some pictures to better explain this.

   

 

 

The seat is bolted in using 5/16" bolts with washers on both sides

    Once you have verified that the seat rails fit over the mounts perfectly you can center it in the frame and go ahead and drill the 4 5/16" holes though the mounting tabs and all the way through the 2x4's.  You may want to hold off on completely bolting in the seat now since it will make the frame easier to handle and possibly avoid damaging the seat in some way.

    Now its time to mount the pedals.  If your pedals are like mine and need to be mounted at more of an angle you will need some way to hold them in that position securely.  I used a 2x4 cut at a 45 degree angle on one corner that will face the floor and wedge the base of the pedals between the board and the floor.    

Screw the pedal support bar flush with the bottom of the frame like this

Steering wheel mount

    Now that the frame seat and pedals are all in place it's time to finish things off with the steering wheel.  First off the Logitech Force wheel has a steep angle when it is mounted on a flat surface.  I wanted a more vertical racecar like angle.  I held the wheel vertical on a flat surface and used a protractor to find out what angle my mounting surface needed to have in order for the wheel to be vertical when mounted in place.  For me the angle needed to be 25 degrees.  I then held the wheel at a comfortable height while seated in the seat and measured from the base of the wheel to the floor.  Once I had these measurements I cut two 2x4's with the proper length and 25 degree angle.

    Next cut a length of the 1x10 equal to the inside width of your frame, in my case this was 20 inches.  Screw the 2 risers to the sides of the 1x10 plank, by drilling down through the plank and into the top angled part of the risers.  When the rises are securely mounted to the plank temporarily mount the wheel and decide how far forward you want to mount the wheel.  Remember that you want this to be comfortable for you and any others, and also allow room to easily get in and out of the seat.  Once you have found the optimal position make a mark on the frame and screw the risers into the frame at a 90 degree vertical angle. 

Screw the risers in from the backside to avoid unsightly screw heads

    The last thing to do is add some support braces from the front of the mounting plank to the front of the frame.  Just measure from the underside of the board to the floor and mark the angle you need so the support brace will be flush with the bottom of the frame.

Finishing up  

     The last thing you might want to do is to cover the screw heads with wood filler or plugs and add some type of finish on the frame.  I countersunk all the screws, so I used wood plugs sanded the whole frame again and applied a clear polyurethane finish. 

  

Here is the frame with the screw holes covered with 2 coats of clear polyurethane

Here it is in action, I added a bungee cord across the front of the pedals to hold them in place

Contact me at wjh@ufl.edu

Last updated 9/13/2003