Wow, this is starting to get massive ....Part 2
Mounting the new wheel and pedals was a straight forward affair but I did notice with the extra weight I may have to reinforce my rig a bit (something which would become more obvious once I fired it up). I checked the pedal feel, the rubber block actually made the brake feel OK, more throw than I was used to and the accelerator is a bit soft but it will do fine as an interim set, (provided I don't break them).
So I hit the go button and the wheel sprang violently to life with much more force than I was expecting and my once sturdy rig wobbled a bit under the force and I went straight into free run at the Red Bull Ring with the MX-5 as this was the last track and car I had used with the G27 and should give me a good idea of a comparison between the two wheels. I set the FFB settings to 5 torque and 5 sensitivity as a baseline setting (down from 10 and 8 with the g27) and started a lap...... instantly any guilt I felt about retiring the g27 flew out the window .....THIS THING WAS FREAKIN' AWESOME (in comparison) for the first time since I dabbled a bit with iracing I felt as if I was driving a car that was connected to the road, but this was better than the g27 on iracing it felt for the want of a better term "natural, instinctive maybe, and much, much stronger, I could feel the tyres on the road and it felt right, going around corners the steering weights up nicely and gets heavier when you wind more steering lock on, when you get the bum out and need to put on opposite lock the steering goes lighter like it should, the rumble strips and even the grass felt good and I found myself going off track slightly and throwing on the handbrake just so I could feel the effects. I noticed that I was moving the wheel a great deal more than I used to making many small corrections due to the fact I could actually feel what was going on. After a while I decided I needed to turn it down a bit and settled on a 4/2 setting due to my dodgy shoulder and elbow getting too much of a workout and getting a bit sore. (but this would be best left to the individual to sort out). I then decided to throw down some fast laps and then compare the fastest laps on the g27 and T300 on the data logger (yes I finally found a practical use for it) and the results were a little surprising. At the RBR the lap speed was pretty much identical until the last corner where I got through 9 km/h faster, it doesn't sound much but it was worth nearly half a second at the start/finish line. So apart from that it didn't really make me any faster, but I felt much more confident and consistent where I was placing the car. With the g27 when you were pushing for a fast lap,the first and last corners felt like a 50/50 proposition if you were going to make the corner safely or within track limits, with T300 I just felt a lot more confident and could line up the car better and with more time in the saddle and the more I get used to it a quicker time could be possible with fewer off track excursions. The internal fan did crank up and you can hear it when you're not driving so once you're underway or more so if you wear headphones you will barely notice it if at all.
More surprising was the brake data which showed I was using the same initial brake pressure with both pedal sets but a fair bit less brake pressure after that with the crap thrustmaster pedals during trail braking (also braking slightly later as well) so a bit of a win for the cheapy pedals there, but this could possibly be down to the longer throw of the thrustmasters compared to the g27 pedals, or it could be with the more accurate steering I need less brake, I will do more testing when the ricmotech adapter arrives (whenever that may be). So the pedals work OK, only because of the rubber block mod, but I don't think they would last long at least not in my service, like I said previously they just feel weak and flimsy almost like DFGT pedals (and I shattered a set of those, so I might be a bit hard on my pedals but I like realism).
If you need a wheel AND pedals for PS3/4 the T500 with its good quality pedal set (these probably need modding to be made acceptable too) may be a better option, from what I can gather there isn't a great deal of difference between the two as far as feel is concerned, except that the t500 may have a slightly heavier more dampened feel too it
The bottom line here for me is the T300 wheel is a massive step up from the G27 it just feels so much more alive and responsive (sorry old faithful you are dead to me now), the pedals are
but usable but there are alternatives as mentioned in part 1.
I hope this gives you a bit of information to help you decide which way to go, it's not easy to make these decisions especially when these things aren't exactly what you would call cheap.
So endeth the lesson.
Cheers
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