HEUSINKVELD ENGINEERING

“FoFoFu one”
Do-it-yourself instructions for a race
simulator cockpit where
Form
Follows
Function

FOR PERSONAL USE - ANY COMMERCIAL USE PROHIBITED - THIS DOCUMENT IS FREE! - EVERYTHING AT YOUR OWN RISK!
Introduction
I feel there are too many overpriced cockpits, frames and rigs for sale. Often they aren’t even that ergonomic or
adjustable! With this document you can build your own simulator race cockpit for a fraction of the price of most
commercially available units.

This guide is not perfect, nor is the simulator, as this is a fun spare time project!

Each seat, wheel and pedals are different. Some creative adjustments may be required as you build the cockpit. I
estimate the cost, excluding the seat, at around 75 euro or 100USD.

Features:

- GT / supercar style seating position

- Adjustable pedal position
- Adjustable seat position (no expensive slider rails required)
- Adjustable wheel angle and height
- Build in monitor stand (monitor needs VESA mounting holes, most have it)
- Plans for monitor stands for triple screen setups
- Fits anyone from 155 to 205cm (5ft to 6ft9in)

Caution
Wear ear but especially eye protection when cutting, drilling and sawing!

Ventilate the room especially when sawing MDF which is quite a fine dust

Measure twice, cut once!

If you manage to get hurt, I didn’t do it!

Don’t rush to the store, read this document first!

Parts list Metric
Pine beams (or other suitable straight beam material)

I used rectangular beams of 44x69 millimeter. Use whatever is available close to these sizes. I wouldn’t go below
38x64 mm. These are the beams you need:

Amount Length (millimeter)

2 1500
2 960

MDF plate, 15 or 18mm thickness

Here is everything you have to saw (get the local DIY store to do it for a few bucks!) including a table with amounts
and dimensions:

Millimeter
id Amount Length Width
A 1 1500 510
B 2 1000 160
C 1 390 360
D 2 630 200
E 2 210 130
F 2 360 200
G 8 200 25
H 2 150 25
I 1 510 150

G and H are small bars. If you find bar material with a 15x25mm cross section (or slightly larger), buy 2 meters of
that. Then you only have to cut lengths, which is a lot less work.

Other materials

- One 20 .. 25mm broom stick or other round bar, 1 meter (1000mm) long
- Box of coarse tread wood screws (see further in document)
- 300mm Rod end, tread type that fits your seat mounting holes (typically M8) and 4 nuts
- Sunken bolts with tread type matching seat mounting holes, length depends, fairly long
- 4 bolts and nuts and 8 washers, I use M6 x 45mm, for mounting wheel plate
- Some other materials, read this document to decide what extra you may need!
Parts list Inches
Pine beams (or other suitable straight beam material)

I used rectangular beams of 1.7 x 2.7 inch. Use whatever is available close to these sizes. I wouldn’t go below 1.5 x
2.5 inch. These are the beams you need:

Amount Length inch

2 59.1
2 38

MDF plate, 0.6 or 0.7 inch thickness

Here is everything you have to saw (get the local DIY store to do it for a few bucks!) including a table with amounts
and dimensions:

Inch
id Amount Length Width
A 1 59.1 20.1
B 2 39.4 6.3
C 1 15.4 14.2
D 2 24.8 7.9
E 2 8.3 5.1
F 2 14.2 7.9
G 8 7.9 1
H 2 5.9 1
I 1 20.1 5.9

G and H are small bars. If you find bar material with a 0.6 x 1 inch cross section (or slightly larger), buy 79 inches of
that. Then you only have to cut lengths, which is a lot less work.

Other materials

- One 0.8 .. 1 inch broom stick or other round bar, 39 inch long
- Box of coarse tread wood screws (see further in document)
- 12 inch rod end, tread type that fits your seat mounting holes (typically M8) and 4 nuts
- Sunken bolts with tread type matching seat mounting holes, length depends, fairly long
- 4 bolts and nuts and 8 washers, for mounting wheel plate
- Some other materials, read this document to decide what extra you may need!
Buying a seat
I strongly advise against going to the junk yard for a smelly old seat. There are usually a few options between 75 and
250 euro for a nice bucket seat. I use a Cobra Clubman which is fairly comfortable if a bit ‘up straight’. I assume the
seat you buy will have 4 treaded holes in the bottom for mounting. You don’t need to buy rails as with such a seat as
my Ultra Cheap Adjust O Matic ™ works just fine!

Screwing it together, don’t screw up!

Using screws is easy and you can undo your actions if you’ve made a mistake. Pine is quite soft so use screws that
have a bit of ‘bite’ in them. Coarse screws like these do the job fine:

I used ones with an outside diameter of 5mm (0.2 inch). There is no need to use longer screws than the thickness of
the MDF panels + 25mm (one inch), so in my case 15mm + 25mm = 40mm. You must pre drill holes for the screws.
The screw is supposed to pull the second part against the first part, so the hole in the first part must be as large as or
larger than the diameter of the screw:

0) Clamp the parts together so they can’t move

1) Drill a deep enough hole ~2/3rds the diameter of the screw (3.5mm)
2) Drill at least as deep as the first material with the diameter of the screw (5mm)
3) Use a big drill to sink the hole a little bit
4) See how the screw fits, and only ‘eats’ the material in the 2nd part, pulling it towards the first

Yes this is a bit of work but it really should be done this way.

When you feel confident, apply some glue between the parts. The screws will act as a ‘clamp’ for the glue which will
create incredible stiffness once it has dried. You can’t undo this once the glue has dried though, so be very sure
when working with glue!
The “Ultra Cheap Adjust – o – Matic ™
The seat and pedals can move fore / back with an incredibly cheap system that has worked well for me for many
years. Seat rails can cost 50 euro or more, which is almost as much as the entire rig is supposed to cost, so we’re
going to do this cheaper! This is the basic idea for the pedal system:
Drilling a lot of holes
The downside of this adjustability is that there are a lot of holes to drill. Drilling straight is not easy at all, but it is
quite important for these parts. The thicker your MDF, the bigger the impact of not drilling straight, so take your
time and practice a little if you’re not sure about your skills.

Seat / pedals adjustment Holes

Measure the distance between the rear two mounting holes on the bottom of your seat. This is 290mm for my Cobra
Clubman:

Find the two plates with id F. Carefully drill a hole pattern, spaced evenly apart, where 290 is whatever distance
between the rear mounting holes your seat has. I drilled 10mm (0.4 in) holes, larger than the 8mm (0.3 in) holes in
the seat. The holes are 20mm (0.8 in) apart. Take time to draw lines so these holes are accurately placed, and try to
keep the drill vertical so your holes go straight through! Do this for all two F panels
Monitor Adjust Holes

Monitor height is very much an underrated quality of a sim rig. You should stare straight forward into the center of
the screen. Most rigs have you looking up, some down, but few straight ahead!

Measure the distance between the rear mounting holes of your monitor. Usually this is 100mm (3.94 inch) in a
square. The standard screws for mounting the monitor are M4 i.e. 4mm or 0.16 inch. Drill a slightly larger (I used
6mm) hole as you just won’t drill perfectly straight or at the perfect place.

Find one plate with id D. Drill a pattern of holes, where 100x100 depends on the hole spacing of your monitor. Try to
drill straight! Make ONE of these, not two (phew!). You end up with in my case, 5 squares of 100mm so there are 5
monitor height positions.

Note, the 628 is actually 630..

Building the base
Clamp the two longest pine beams on the edges of the floor plate:

Avoid this mistake:

Turn it around and pre drill 12 holes. Start 25mm (1 inch) from the end, then space holes 290mm (11.4 inch) apart:

Pre drill as explained earlier! Tighten the 12 screws.

Preparing the sides
Take the two MDF plates with id B. Draw the blue line as shown below and use a jigsaw to cut the triangle off. Do
this for both panels, preferably nice and straight!

Locate the two small panels with id E, and mount them to the remaining pine beams:

There are 2 of these, so do it twice. Pre drill holes properly and make sure the screw is fully sunken into the hole!
Assembling the sides
The two up standing sides are mirrored. Lay these on a table and align them so these are the dimensions and the
pine beam is upright at a 90 degree angle:

Align them as well as you can, measure again! Clamp them and pre drill three holes and screw together. Hopefully
they two sides are nice mirrors of each other.
Sliding Mechanism
Measure the inside width of the simulator base. This should be the outer width minus two widths of pine beam so in
my case 510 – 44 – 44 = 422mm. Cut two of these lengths of the broom stick or other round bar you found in the DIY
store. You may have to trim the length a tiny bit until the sticks can just about move freely in between the side
beams.

From the parts lists you have eight pieces of part id G. Use a little double side tape to mount them like this, using
the two broom sticks as a measure of the space between them. The distance from each end as a starting point is
400mm or 15.7 inch. In the end you can glue or screw them on, but positions may change depending on your seat
and pedal frame.
Pedal Base
Take the Pedal Base plate (id C) and drill two 10mm (0.4 inch) holes, spaced as far apart as the rear seat mounting
holes, in my case 290mm. Clamp a broom stick to the other end, make sure it is straight and in the middle, and drill
and screw it together.

This is where you have to mount your pedals on. Because of the seating position you may have to angle the pedals
considerably. This will depend on the model pedals you use. I recommend taking the pedals out of their plastic
housing (G25/G27, possibly Thrustmaster T500), but you can probably put the entire pedal set on here.

With some left over pieces of pine beam and MDF I would suggest to create the angle like this:

Find a way to mount your pedals to the pedal base in a way you think is right, you may have to adjust it when the
build is done.
Seat Base
The other broom stick goes on the bottom front of the seat. It will depend on your seat but you will need some
spacers. Either use a stack of washers or any other suitable material. It depends on your seat how tall the stack of
spacers must be to create a nice seating height. An initial value could be 50mm or 2 inch. Naturally the length of
screw has to be matched to the height of the spacer. The treaded holes are usually not very deep in these seats. Put
some short treaded rods in the rear mounting holes.

Test Fit with your pedals mounted! (Pedals not drawn!)

Place the two hole adjust plates (purple) on the simulator base and test fit your seat and pedal base like this:

I like slight backwards lean on the seat, adjust the rod end length in the rear seat mounts to change the lean angle of
the seat. I’ve put some bolts in the front of the pedal base, they fall into the holes.
Mounting the sides
When mounting the sides, make sure the beams are upright (90 degrees). Also make sure the distance from the
vertical beams to the front of the rig are the same left and right.

Note, the sides don’t sit on the floor, they are up a bit:
Making the wheel plate
The wheel plate consists of parts with id H and I, screwed and glued together for optimum strength. When possible,
hard mount your wheel by drilling the required holes.

This is a side view and where I drilled the holes. 110mm is 4.3 inch and 10mm is 0.4 inch. I drilled 7mm (0.27 inch)
holes. Later a nut/bolt will connect it to the rest of the rig

Now put the seat and pedals back in, mount your wheel to the wheel plate and have a seat! Be careful you don’t fall
backwards, the sliders are still only held with tape! Hold the wheel in a comfortable position and clamp it there.
Draw the points where you have to drill holes in the side. You can invert the wheel plate as shown below.

I drilled a few holes in the angled sides as you can see, so I can mount the wheel at a few heights and angles. Use
four bolts / washers /nuts to secure the wheel plate between the sides.
Finalizing seat and pedal position
The 8 small bars and the hole plates for the seat and pedal mechanism are still either loose or put on with tape. Now
that you’re sitting there, decide on a good position for these parts. If you’re about 6 foot, that should be a
reasonable middle position. You’d want that to be the middle of the adjustability range for the pedals and wheel.

Drawn below is the middle position, but you may move the green / purple parts fore or aft a bit based on your seat
type, pedal mounting etc etc.

Always use two pieces of broom stick (or whatever material you used) to act as a template for the space between
the green bars. The bars on the floor are fine with double sided tape, as are the hole adjust plates. You may want to
glue or screw the green bars that go on the side rails as they have more forces to endure.
Almost there
Take another seat in the rig, and find out how high your eyes are. Draw this as a line on the vertical beams. Place the
monitor plate as seen below, so the middle monitor mount places the monitor center at eye level, assuming you’re
of average 6 foot height. Use 4 screws (you are still pre-drilling the holes nicely of course!).

You can see I used the second panel with id D (in green) on the back of the vertical beams for more stiffness. If you
don’t want the monitor stand, at least use this brace plate for stiffness!

That’s it! Mount the monitor, wire it up, and have a drive!

I glued some felt feet on the bottom to make sure the rig can’t scratch the floor.

Phew!
With these instructions and some creativity I hope you managed to create a solid simracing cockpit. This guide
wasn’t supposed to be so long, it has gone a bit out of hand! I hope it was helpful. If you have remarks or found
errors in this guide, feel free to email me at info@h-engineering.nl . I can’t really provide building or assembling
support though, there is real life too you know!  Enjoy simracing!

Niels Heusinkveld, July 2012.

Legal bits
This document is free, but commercial use of the simulator described in this document is forbidden. Sale of plans,
kits or assembled simulators described in this document is forbidden. If you want to do anything other than personal
use, email me.
Addendum: Quick guide to a cheap (slightly) adjustable monitor stand
Required per stand:

- 1 pine beam, 960mm or 38 inches long

- 1 floor plate, MDF, 350x350mm or 14x14 inch
- 2 metal angle brackets with stud, see picture 
- 1 monitor plate, MDF, 200x150mm or 8x6 inch
- 4 pieces of rod end of about 80mm or 3 inch
- 4 hammer nuts with same tread as rod end, see picture 
- 4 plastic bottle caps or felt feet

Procedure:

1) Drill 4 holes near the corners of the floor plate and carefully insert the hammer nuts (MDF can split)
2) Mount the angle brackets and pine beam to the floor plate, hammer nuts facing down!
3) Drill the VESA monitor holes (100x100mm most often) in the monitor plate
4) Mount the monitor plate to the pine beam, some 25mm or 1 inch too low
5) Insert rod ends in floor plate corner hammer nuts
6) Adjust height and level of the monitor by turning the rod ends
7) Place some feet underneath the rod ends to avoid floor scratches!

This is how it more or less how this 15 euro / 20USD monitor stand looks. It is more than stable enough for my 27
inch screens, so why pay more?