rec.autos.simulators

I have recently read in this newsgroup about people putting a tennis ball
behind the brake pedal to increase it's responsiveness......So how exactly
am I supposed to do this?  Do I tape the ball to the base, or to the brake
pedal itself?  Do I cut a slit in the ball?  Any info is good.....

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Carleton University                              

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        Al Capp
"Just because I don't care doesn't mean I don't understand,"
        Homer Simpson, 1994
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Yes.. I tried the tennis ball method a month or two ago.. (posted here), and
also found the tennis ball, as is, to have too little compression.

The secret?.. with a knife, cut a slit in one side of the tennis ball, about
1.5 inches long. Just a slit will do fine. Keep cutting until the ball has
some "give" to it.

Now my brake pedal feels like the real thing (damn close, anyhow). I've got
a bit (1/4 inch) of free travel(as the pedal shaft presses into the now
"softened" tennis ball, then as I continue to press, I get progressive
resistance for about 1/2 inch. When I really squeeze the heck out of the
pedal, I get maybe 1/6 of an inch extra travel, but you can sure feel it!
(Just make sure you really squeeze hard during calibration.)

With my T2 pedal set (which I have proped against two small planks of wood
under my desk (one as a spacer between the wall and the pedals so they don't
slide away from me(!), and the other about 1 1/2 inches thick to give the
pedal base some angle, so the pedal travel is more "natural"), I put the
tennis ball behind the brake pedal, so it sits on that flat "lip" at the
back of the base. Take some duct tape, and wrap it from one side of the base
(ie: from left to right), around the tennis, and just around onto the next
side (enough so that it sticks). Then I added a small strip from the base,
up over the tennis ball
onto the top, just to the left of the brake pedal's shaft (again, just
enough so that it sticks well). Then added another strip left-to-right for
re-enforcement.

My lap times dropped about 2 seconds/lap by doing this.. The brakes are just
so much better. I don't know what the brakes feel like in one of those
thousand-dollar Hyperstimulators, but I'll tell you, this little tip makes
my pedals feel like what I imagine they may be like. If I didn't know what
was hiding underneath my desk (the T2), I'd have said it was a fairly
high-quality pedal set! (call me crazy!)

Try it!

doktorB
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You should use a big ol' zip lock bag.  Then if you press too hard, too
often the zipper will open and let all of the air out.  That way the brake
will have no resistance and press real easy.  This is to simulate that you
used the brakes too often and boiled the brake fluid, rendering the brakes
useless.

That's always a great feeling going into a turn at speed and finding out
at the last second that you don't have any brakes left!  Woohoo!

Of course, usually when you boil the fluid the brakes gradually go away,
but you get the idea.
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