After 2 weeks of grief trying to get used to the LWFF pedals which are
real crap, I'm still slow, even after altering the spring rates etc....i
had an idea, well more in desperation really!
I got one of my old TM GP1 steering wheels out which has paddles on for
acc/brake, ripped the wiring out of the LWFF pedals and rewired it into
the GP1 paddles. Put a bit of *** tube under the brake lever to give
some feeling to the lock up point, restarted windows to get the LW to
recalibrate and tried it out<BG> Pots used by TM are 250K and LW use 50K
but no probs with calibration!
Had to put my feet at a strange angle as the paddles are set for 10 and
2 o'clock on the wheel but by turning it around i ended up with 4 and 8
o'clock which isnt too bad for now<S>
Stop laughing! this is serious stuff!!
Back to silverstone where i have struggled to get into the low 1:28's in
the last 2 weeks and first laps a low 29 followed by a 28:14 and then a
27:90.
I did a few more laps and yes its repeatable.
....much later....... i have now cut up the wheel so i have both
pedals(paddles) facing me instead of at an angle and mounted them on MDF
board, I also fitted 2 alloy footplates over the original finger shaped
paddles. All works great!! I think i will be happy for now till i have
time to make some more profesional looking ones to suit me.
Now the wheel.
I was really stuggling to get to grips with this one too...Should have
just kept using the GP1 i think<S>
I have not been enabling FF as with all the problems i had changing over
from using a GP1 with hand throttle/brake to foot pedals i didnt feel i
needed the added distraction of trying to find a good setting for FF as
well. Installed s/ware is Ver 3.30 BTW.
It seemed to me that i had far less control over the car positioning on
the track with this wheel, like i had a big null zone set (but i didnt)
i run with 0% from my GP1 days and it seemed like there was lag in any
input from me getting to the car and if i got a slide on then any
attempt to oposite lock would almost always result in a tank slapper. I
am using the usb port with W98. I tried the serial port and it made no
difference.
I stripped the wheel and removed the potentiometer. I had read of
someone who had found too much free play in the steering wheel shaft to
pot joint which was causing him the same sort of problem, so i got the
hot glue gun out and put some in the plastic connector into which the
pot shaft is supposed to mate, quickly refitting the pot before the glue
set. That got rid of the lag<S> Now i find i have a lot more control
over the car when changing direction and i'm franticly trying to unlearn
the bad habits i got into in the last few weeks to try and compensate
for the slack i had in the steering. BTW the steering wheel seemed to
have a large amount of mechanical free play too and when i went to strip
it off i found the locking nut was loose, the lock tab supplied is
pretty useless to retain it too, so a small dab of nut lock here may
help. Don't over tighten the nut though as it may cause the wheel to
bind slightly, just nip it up.
The top steering shaft outer bush seems to have been a poor design too
as there is quite a lot of free movement in the wheel, if i cant go to
replacing all the bushings with bearings as i dont have the equipment
here to do my own machining, i may just see if i can make a replacement
for this bush that has a locking circlip to hold it in place which would
stop almost all of the wheel float.
I have also removed the 2 plastic stops to allow the wheel to move
further (as per Alison's post on eagle womans site).
All in all<BG> i'm not sure yet that this wheel and pedals was such a
good idea for me as i have plenty of spare parts for my GP1's which i
have fitted bearings to and modified for duel axis, but i did want to
"play" with FF and now that the kit is to my liking i can at least do
that.
MikeT.
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