E30 Simulator

[Assault 3]

Sometimes a great thing is created and this is is definately one of them. I was thoughfully emailed this from a friend who stubbled across it:

"As an avid BMW E30 owner, I decided with the amount of spare parts I had lying around, to build a home simulator to play around with, little did I know it would get as powerful and features as it has (even featured on Kotaku ffs).

A little bit of background to describe why its built as it is. I'm a perfectionist when it comes to cars. I cannot have things in place that do not function, and while the simulator has a few things like that, 95% of the thing works like it did on the original car.

Spec List.

Pentium 4 3.46EE, 2GB Ram, Radeon 2600HD, 80GB SATA Hard Disk, Wireless, Creative Audigy LS, Beta Innovations Signal Generators, 2PAC USB Keyboard Emulator, 300W Switching PSU for the computer, 5Amp 12V PSU for the electronics, BMW relays, BMW Fuses, etc.

Everything in the cockpit fuctions, and some in a slightly interesting way. For example if you honk the horn, it will change views, if you pull up on the ebrake, it not only activates it inside the game, it turns on the light on the dashboard. The window switches do not function at this time, however one will be used to adjust brake bias from Front to Rear.

The basis for everything is a highly modified Logitech G25 which is hidden underneath the electronics module. The shifter is modified to except a BMW E30 shifter, knob, and boot.

Audio is handled by a BMW E30 Factory Headunit, with CD Changer.

Some of the other random cool features, the BMW Onboard computer fully functions, and even calculated avg MPH, shows temp, range, and even has a speed limiter which will set off the door gong (which is installed. I also installed 80MM fans behind the vents which are controlled by the factory fan knob.

One of the coolest features of the sim is the fully functional guage cluster. Coolant Temp, Fuel, Speedometer and Tachometer all function completed, in fact if you stall the engine in the game you have to use the key to restart it, just like a real car (even turns off the radio and gauges while you do it for an authentic look)

The game itself is GTR Revolution, which provides us a BMW E30 M3 DTM Race car for authenticity."

http://jalopnik.com/393849/homemade-drivin...han-modern-bmws

[JiB 0]

G25! Do. Want.

[Guest Ari Gold]

Haha that's James' setup over on R3v.

New mods make it even better:

http://www.r3vlimited.com/board/showthread...447#post1466447

And a vid of the old one:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7...iving+Simulator

[e30plz 1]

[tire 10]

Just get an e30?

[bmw_guy 0]

i want a go!

[bmw_guy 0]

lol the simulators ready for an inspection

[Gus 5]

I want one

[bravo 35]

That is too cool. I'd start gaming if I had one of those.

Edited April 6, 2009 by bravo

[deane30 30]

AWESOME

[Guest Simon*]

That's pretty cool