Budget Racing Sim equipement

How old is your son?
If he's under 12 or so, that'll work just fine.

If he's a little bit older and wants quality gear that'll last very well and also is upgradable as he improves, fanatec is a great place to look:

Gran Turismo DD Pro (5 Nm) | Fanatec

is a great starting point. I'd add the load cell kit for the pedals as well whilst you're at it. Later on you can add different wheels, the 8nm torque kit (realistically all anyone would actually need).


The rig/seat is a bit difficult to answer. The best material to use by a very long shot is 8020, infinitely adjustable, extremely sturdy...realistically this is an item you have to buy once and never again. You can go the playseat/next level route but you'll always upgrade in the end. These tend to flex quite a bit even using budget wheels. But again it depends on your kid's age really. If he's 8...he can use this for a few years before needing to upgrade to a more sturdy rig

I'd take a serious look at lower end 8020 profile rigs. You can just add a seat from the junkyard even...road car seats are very comfortable for longer sessions.

6S-Slim Sim Racing Chassis – 6 Sigma Sim Racing


I've personally not had a lot of luck with Logitech/Thrustmaster wheels etc. They work fine for a while but low power, cheap parts etc just in the end leads to them breaking. A direct drive wheel like linked above is not only more powerful, but also gives a lot more accurate feedback, can take force for much longer, and quite simply are a lot harder to break. Also, if your son loses interest in 6 months time you can sell the lot almost certainly with barely losing a dollar.

 

No problem at all.

At 9 years old you'll get away with the setup you originally posted, he'll really enjoy it and I'm quite sure will get the sim racing bug, enough for you to persuade him to do well at home/school in order to receive an upgrade in a few years time.

Thrustmaster, Logitech are your only options really which for a kid are more than good enough to learn on. The low force feedback will be enough for him for a few years yet.

I assume for the time being he'll be on the playstation or xbox?

I know a few dads who are into sim racing and now do it with their teenage sons. Good father/son time! Once he moves to PC and gets into iRacing that's when you may get interested yourself as well.

 

My Thrustmaster T300RS finally wore out, I got it back in 2016 & I'm really surprised it lasted as long as it did. Anyway rather than trying to repair or replace the servo hub, I opted to finally upgrade to the Fanatec DD Pro (5Nm). I'm currently just running PD's GT7 but looking to expand to PC racing later on.

 

yeah, sim racing can get expensive really quickly. Newest set of pedals from Simucube are 2200 USD. Each. So if you where to go 3 pedals that's 6.6K Of course that's an extreme example and the actual lap time gain of those over a set of say Heusinkveld Ultimates at 1200 USD for 3 pedals is tiny.

iRacing itself is not cheap either, base game comes with a few cars/tracks (and actually any racing in rookie series is completely free on all those tracks and cars, minus the subscription fee). Tracks are 15 usd a piece, cars 12 USD or so each (that said, I typically really only drive a handful of different cars, F4, F3, F3.5, 488 GT3 and LMP2 occasionally). But your son is a few years of going to iracing just yet.

iracing is absolutely brilliant though. It provides in my opinion the best racing experience there is. Not just in physics (there are sims that get certain things a bit better), but the way people treat the actual racing and respect for others is far higher than other sims. And the development behind the sim is incredible as well. On top of all that, there will never be an iracing 2, requiring you to buy all content again that pretty much all other games use (look at the F1 series for example...80 USD every year for a sub par game riddled with issues).

Your son is lucky, it's not a cheap hobby to get into but he'll be starting with a good setup!

If you have any questions at all just shoot me a message here or DM.

 

In my experience with my son, the decision between Gran Turismo and iRacing is kind of an important one relative to all of the concerns above.

Neither is categorically better or worse in general, but they are quite different and, depending on what you want, one will be far better than the other.

With Gran Turismo, there are a million different car brands and models and it's much more of a game. It's easy to have fun with, and the variety of cars is amazing, as is the backgroun music while browsing menus in the UI. It's much more of a game than a sim. There is probably more of a chance of him getting "addicted" in a less productive sense with Gran Turismo.

With iRacing, it's definitely a sim and not really a game. iRacing doesn't have that many cars (it takes a LOT of work to model each one accurately), there is no background music, you have to earn your way (with iRating & safety rating) to get into better races and better races classes. It's not a game, and maybe not as enjoyable unless racing (sim and real-world) is your goal. If you use it enough to get "addicted", that may be a positive thing because you'll be a very competent racer, will probably be part of a racing team, and you'll be well positioned for real-life racing. As part of a structured racing team, you'll learn a lot of interpersonal skills, as well as planning, project management, analytics skills, organizational skills (for things like endurance events), etc.

My son, who is extremely interested in real-life and kart racing, loved Gran Turismo back when he first started in racing, and he still reminisces about aspects of Gran Turismo today (like car choice, and the great background music). That said, he really wishes he had switched to iRacing much sooner, just because the environment is infinitely better for anyone really interested in racing. iRacing probably been one of the most important "life development" tools for him far beyond just the racing aspect (e.g. all the skills mentioned in the prior paragraph and many more).

For wheels and pedals, Logitech is good enough to get started in iRacing and be competitive (there are some simple mods to make Logitech perform even better). The software/service is a little more expensive than Gran Turismo. The only thing that can be expensive is the PC, as some fairly serious CPU and GPU can be needed to run iRacing.

 

I think this is another "buy better stuff from the start" I thought I just needed a better Force Feedback Wheel, which didn't work very well on my desk so I bought a cockpit. Then a bigger monitor, then a 50 TV/Monitor, then triple screens, then a ButtKicker etc
What I should have done was buy a good complete used setup on Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace as Sim Racing is almost as expensive as Italian toy cars

 

I have a couple of Wheel Fanatec wheel bases and wheels that I don't use - PM me if anyone is interested. They are used - but in good shape I'd sell for a fraction of the cost - they will work with Asseto corsa, and X box..... not sure about Play Station. Best with a PC.