I still love my Dell Zino for my HTPC. I think I am upgrading to a personal cloud tho and using a NAS to stream to Chromecast purely for storage.
If you want to talk about VMware datastores, work in health care and see how massive they get. Lol.
I already do.
Just sold my Lenovo Server tower so it looks like I will be setting up my iRacing rig sooner, rather than later. Got my eye on a nice wheel/pedal/shifter combo, so I should be getting started on it next week.
An update!
I’ve had an idea for quite some time to build a race simulator rig for iRacing, Assetto Corsa, Dirt, Project Cars, etc… I finally set enough money aside that I could pick up some equipment to get started.
I disbanded my mancave recently…sold my 9’ pool table and converted half of it into my wood shop. That left this side/corner of the basement open for my choosing, it was starting to just become a junk corner and I needed to do something about it.
Started by installing a couple LED dimmable lights and got my monitors setup, almost to where I needed them.
Went down to M&M on Saturday morning with @llink78 to pull the dash, bucket seat and center console out of a Miata, exactly what I was looking for. Tom knew it was there, so I probably wouldn’t have even gotten this without ya! I was shocked that everything I needed was there. The dash is beat up a little, few cracks here and there and I had to snag the passenger seat because the driver side was pretty beat, but whatever, I got all this for $55, can’t even buy a bucket seat online for double that!
So we got everything back to my garage and just as we had unloaded, the Fedex guy showed up with my wheel and pedals.
Mock up, sort of…
I don’t have any build pictures because it was just a pain in the ass and I wanted to get it done. I still want to change up the seat angle a bit and maybe raise that and the steering wheel a bit.
Here is what I came up with after a few hours of engineering and building:
Shifter came in the mail yesterday, so I got that installed last night and finally got a to turn some laps and get my first race in. Raced an oval @ Charlotte until I got spun by some blowhard that was trying to win every corner, ended up finishing 8th out of 22, not too shabby.
Then I ran a lot of practice laps in a Miata, which is what is pictured here.
The thing about iRacing is that you start out as a rookie. You have to practice, qualify and then finally race to earn your license experience. You basically just want to get out of the rookie class as quick as possible. However, to do this, you must race clean, turn solid laps and basically not be a liability to everyone else around you. This means practice and qualify are your best friends before you hit the track to race.
Anyways, here’s where I got as of last night:
The top screen runs from my laptop and has realtime telemetry stats. I can also set this up to be a spectator/spotter account if I find that I need that.
Dash and guage cluster are a combo of an Ipad Air and and old iPhone running iHUD software. These are totally customizable. I can throw all my guages for oil and water temp, fuel lvl & pressure, I can setup a button box, splits, etc…really anything you want, it can be added.
I’m still working out some kinks in it, screen setup, I have a 5.1 surround system I need to hook up. I also have a roll of new automotive carpet that I plan to cover most of the race rig with, once I get it adjusted fully. I’m going to grab a handbrake today and should have that in a couple weeks. The one I’m looking at ships out of Japan.
I will be jumping into a league soon on iRacing, but for now I just need to keep working on getting out of my rookie class. Once I can get some clean laps in, I’ll post some vids.
Edit. That’s pretty slick!
That’s pretty cool man.
I also applaud you for taking over my title for nerdiest DIY.
Turned out great Rob. Cant wait to get over and see what it looks like in person.
Those are some big shoes to fill my friend…lol
All of this was accomplished through a good amount of research and fairly low networking skills. Getting the ipad and iphone to play nice was super easy, once I downloaded the server software to my racing rig.
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Once I get it really finished, I’ll let you know and come take it for a “spin” haha thanks again for the help, couldn’t have done it without ya!
I want to take this for a test drive when it’s done too.
Sounds good. I want to make sure everything is secured nice and tight. I was playing last night with my Bose headphones on and didn’t realize that my shift plate had come loose. Guess I was mashing gears a little to hard and pulled one of the anchors out that I installed to hold it in place.
It’s always much easier to buy a premade kit that holds the pedals, shifter and wheel…the issue is A. They are $500 and B. it’s not built to my sizing and comfort requirements.
I just have to get the bugs out of this setup and then it will be solid.
Building one of these using the 100" projection screen in my home theater would be pretty cool, except I’d need at least 2 60" TV’s for the left/right views.
That would be awesome, but I think the issue would be that you would have to turn your head to see the side screens, unless you sat back super far. I like the 3 screens because it almost acts as a windshield and gives me the right perspective. I just need to mess around with the FOV settings and align the screens better. You can see the rear view mirror doesn’t transition the greatest, so I just need to find the right numbers that match.
Haha, that center console literally goes for $200 itself on the Miata forums. You stole that thing at $55.
I thought I might have upset some of the Miata guys for cutting a dash in half :tinfoilhat:
Guess I could have made good money off the whole thing instead of hacking it up 
Eh, no one really cares about the dash much, they all came in black, but that center console is super sought after lol.
Even from a NB?
Especially.