Racing Simulator Arcade Cabinet

Building an Arcade Cabinet of My Own Design

Introduction
 

Ever since I built my virtual pinball machine, I've wanted to build a racing simulator arcade cabinet. I actually started building one before my house burned down taking the cabinet with it.
 

Well, I finally moved from an appartment into a house (with garage, yea!) so I started planning my next project. I decided on a dedicated racing simulator.
 

Research
 

Here are a few racing simulator rigs I found on YouTube:
 

I wasn't too impressed with those. I wanted to design something more like you'd find in an arcade. So, I kept looking...
 

Now, that's a little more like it!
 

Plans
 

Here's what I drew on my whiteboard when planning my cabinet:
(below images are clickable for full sized pictures)
 

I want the thing to be narrow enough to fit through the doors in my house, but big enough to sit in comfortably. Most importantly, it needs to look like an arcade machine!
 

I should be able to build the entire thing with two 4x8 sheets of 3/4" plywood and six or seven 2x4's.
 

The Build
 

I started by putting together the 2x4's for the base. I used a folding chair to make sure the results would be comfortable. So far, so good!
 

Next, I built the platform for the racing seat. It sits on rails, so it is fully adjustable. I splurged here and bought a nice seat. It has the same dimensions and controls as the seat in my real sports car.
 

Below the seat, you can just barely see the sub woofer. On the front panel under the seat, you can see the holes I drilled there for the sub woofer. (Click for bigger image to see the holes.)
 

I built a frame to hold the stearing wheel assembly. I painted it red to match the seat and to match my real sports car.
 

I am running the Logitech G PRO Racing Wheel for PC. I went way overboard here. If you make yourself a racing rig, save yourself about $1000 and get the Logitech G920 wheel instead, seriously. This pro wheel has way more features than I will ever use.
 

A friend of mine gave me some round tail lights (from an old UPS? truck) and I paired that with an old 12v power supply brick I had. I'm just testing them on the bench--yup, they work!
 

I built a taller frame to hold the monitor above the steering wheel. Don't look too closely at the cross board... it's crooked. The important thing is that the holes are not crooked, so the monitor is straight!
 

The monitor I'm using is a 32 inch 2560x1440px non-curved Acer that I had laying around. The bracing has the standard vesa mounting holes, so I can replace it with a curved monitor later.
 

Some enthusiasts have a 3 monitor setup (1 in the middle with 1 on either side). That's just overkill for what I had in mind. And, later I found that many sim racers actually prefer the single monitor setup. Anyway, that's what I'm running.
 

The volume control for the sub woofer/speakers is just to the right of the seat. And, I'm just pulling the (black and green) wires for the break lights under the seat out the back.
 

The back is painted and on. I painted the bumper with a chrome paint. There are lag bolts through it that are holding the back in place to the posts holding up the seat platform. I also mounted the license plate (metal, motorcycle sized--purchased custom printed on Amazon) and chrome frame. I'm getting ready to wire up the break lights.
 

I wired up the break lights. They're hardwired so that if the power is on, the lights are also on. They're not too bright and don't over power the room that the rig is in. I also mounted the tail pipes below the bumper. I made these out of wood and also spray painted them with chrome paint.
 

OK, here I cut out the sides and am making sure they will fit before I painted them.
 

Another view of the sides. Here you can see another view of the holes I drilled in the panel under the seat for the sub woofer. And, you can see the seat adjustment levers.
 

The curve near the seat is a little rough (I made it freehand with a jig saw), but he curves at the bottom of the "door" look pretty good. I made them with a 2 inch hole saw. By the way, I used my router to ease the edges everywhere you might put your hands.
 

I built a shelf in the front to hold the PC. That should keep it out of sight while playing the game.
 

One last check before I paint the sides. I really feel like I'm getting close to being done now!
 

I used an X-ACTO knife to cut out a template for the wheels. I will be spray painting them on the sides of the cabinet. The goal is not to be perfect here, but to give you the feeling of a race car. Remember, this is supposed to be an arcade machine.
 

I put down the template and just gave a quick shot of black so I would know where the wheels will be located.
 

I completely covered the wheel area in a shiny metallic paint. This is the same paint I used for the rear bumper. It's very shiny, like chrome.
 

Once that dried, I put the template back on and sprayed the black areas of the wheels--that is, the area between the spokes.
 

Next, I placed a plastic microwave cover over the wheels and sprayed the tires gray.
 

I covered the wheels and painted the inside of the wheel well black.
 

Finally, I covered the entire wheel/wheel well area with a 5 gallon bucket and sprayed the red side color.
 

I screwed the sides onto the frame and sprayed over the screws with matching paint.
 

I moved the car into my arcade room and plugged everything together.
 

The PC is an AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D (8-core, 16-thread) at 4.2 Ghz. The video card is an MSI Gaming GeForce RTX 4060 with 8GB GDRR6 Extreme Clock: 2505 MHz. It has 2 TB SSD and 32 GB DDR5 RAM. The OS is Windows 11 Home. And, the case is a Micro-ATX Tower.
 

Next up, I'll install some car racing simulators as well as some arcade classics. Then, I will follow that up with a menuing system that can be controlled with the steering wheel and pedals.
 

Results
 

Here's a quick video of the racing simulator in action:
 

The software is called Assetto Corsa on Steam.
 

UPDATE: I loaded up some racing simulators including Assetto Corsa, Forza 5, Project Cars, and DiRT and got the steering wheel and pedals working with them. I still need to load up the arcade games, like Pole Position--that's next on my list.
 

But, in the mean time, I'm having fun getting used to the simulations!
 

Assetto Corsa seems to be the most realistic of all the racecar simulators I've tried so far. It works perfectly with the steering wheel and pedals. The force feedback in the steering wheel feels just like driving a real car. In fact, the first car is has you drive is the exact sports car that I own in real life: The Lotus Elise!
 

 
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