Advice on Mounting Car Seat to GT Omega chassis and adding Bass shakers

[Greg Latty]

So my current setup consists of a GT omega classic wheel stand. I decided its time I upgraded to a full chassis but on a budget for now. I ordered the rear seat attachment for 90 bucks.

But this is setup up to accept GT Omegas own racing seat and the mounting brackets are too small for a real car seat. I picked up a Genesis Coupe passenger seat locally for a good price and in Brand new condition. Similar to this one below. Its a great looking and feeling seat.

But its about 4 inches too wide and long. So I need a way to mount it to the rig. I also want to take this chance to take the leap into tactile feedback. Ultimately I want to build a 8020 rig when i have more space and money so Im setting up the seat to be its own Standalone setup. Meaning when Im ready I can unbolt everything Seat rails Bass shakers and all and transfer it over to a new chassis. So heres where I need advice. This is what Im thinking so far:

Mount the seat to Wood ( plywood? MDF? ) and mounting 2 transducers on either side towards the rear of the seat, flat wing style. Or would mounting them under the seat be better? The overall plan is to have at least one on each corner of the rig.

or

Mount the seat to a Metal ( alum. or steel ) plate and mounting the shakers to the plate similar to the wood idea. Is the Metal base a better choice for the shakers? Either setup will have rubber isolators to separate the seat from the actual sim chassis.

What do you guys think. Obviously the Metal plate will be harder to work with and more money. But is it worth it to go metal over wood for 1: the vibration transfering to the seat and 2: Strength to hold me and the seat up. Im a big boy. ( 6ft1 250lbs) Thank you in advance for any advice you guys have.

 

[roundabout]

Hello. I did this with the same GT Omega stand. I used a piece of 18mm plywood mounted to the top of the stand without the upright pieces using 4mm thick sticky foam pads to isolate slightly, e39 BMW seat bolted on top.

Amazon cheap bass shakers, one under each side of the seat base each on a square piece of 6mm ply with bolts trapping the seat base springs.

Another shaker seat back centre and another front of seat base centre. Left and right were for road bumps corners, back for gear changes and front for RPM.

Another pair of shakers under pedal plate left and right for bumps and wheel lock, one under each heel.

Shakers were overheating so cable tied usb powered computer fans to actively cool.

You need a small gap to allow shakers to move so I used extra nuts as spacers between surface and shaker.

Simhub, 5.1 sound card and 3x 190w thomann t.amps to power the 6 channels but only need 50% volume so could use weaker cheaper amps.

As the shakers are at points of contact you get great localised separated tactile which is more than strong enough.

Never found isolation to be an issue, I think it's more important to have each shaker as close as possible to point of contact.

As the shakers have no cases they just fit.

Gear change was still not great so I set up 2 xbox rumble motors one behind each shoulder inside seat and used sim shaker to power.

Works really well and was cheap apart from amps but I got b stock for 90 euros each.

I'm setting up a simlabs P1x so have justed moved the seat onto that.

I'll see if I have any photos of it on the GT Omega stand.

 

[roundabout]

A few photos. Not pretty but effective.

 

[roundabout]

And Simhub profile. I didn't spend a lot of time on this but it's a starting point. You'll need to change file extension to .siprofile before importing.

 

[Greg Latty]

And Simhub profile. I didn't spend a lot of time on this but it's a starting point. You'll need to change file extension to .siprofile before importing.

Wow thanks man. Thats very helpful. Thanks for taking the time to respond. Hiw did the GT omega chassis withstand all of this? Any unwanted rattling or anything?

 

[roundabout]

Surprisingly very little rattling, I made sure all bolts were tight and put the stand on antivibration washing machine feet from Amazon (white things in the photos). Mind you I use VR turned up so wouldn't hear minor rattles. There is some flex in the wheel supports but presumably you are also used to that and it could be braced, I just never got round to it. Forgot to mention I use the other two sim shaker motor channels for a rumble motor on shifter and another on brake pedal, gear change and wheel lock respectively.

Good luck putting yours together.

 

[Greg Latty]

Surprisingly very little rattling, I made sure all bolts were tight and put the stand on antivibration washing machine feet from Amazon (white things in the photos). Mind you I use VR turned up so wouldn't hear minor rattles. There is some flex in the wheel supports but presumably you are also used to that and it could be braced, I just never got round to it. Forgot to mention I use the other two sim shaker motor channels for a rumble motor on shifter and another on brake pedal, gear change and wheel lock respectively.

Good luck putting yours together.

sweet man. thank you. And yes I plan on adding a brace to the wheel stand.

 

[Alvaro de la Orden]

You may need to unattach the seat upholstery in order to see if there is a chance to attach the shakers to the seat´s tubular frame.
Wood is not very good to transmit vibrations, aim for steel or aluminium.
These exciters are very good despite being small. Easier to attach, even with 3M VHB adhesive tape.
https://www.soundimports.eu/en/daex32ep-4.html

This is a budget-friendly amp to power 2 shakers
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Nobsound-NS-20G-Digital-Amplifier-Bluetooth-Black/dp/B07JRC1ZJQ

 

[roundabout]

You may need to unattach the seat upholstery in order to see if there is a chance to attach the shakers to the seat´s tubular frame.
Wood is not very good to transmit vibrations, aim for steel or aluminium.
These exciters are very good despite being small. Easier to attach, even with 3M VHB adhesive tape.
https://www.soundimports.eu/en/daex32ep-4.html

This is a budget-friendly amp to power 2 shakers
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Nobsound-NS-20G-Digital-Amplifier-Bluetooth-Black/dp/B07JRC1ZJQ

My back and front of seat shakers as are bolted to the steel frame of seat. As these are for non directional effects any vibration passed through seat frame is not much of a problem.

Pedals are bolted to steel pedal plate and I did consider isolating left and right but found that when directly under the heels some directionality is maintained despite the connecting plate. I had to drill extra holes in pedal plate for mounting.

Due to proximity the base of seat shakers work well attached to the wood, they have more than enough power if turned up and it seems to prevent transference through the seat frame / springs and keep the directional effects well separated. The smaller higher frequency shakers would probably not work well through any wood for the seat base shakers, could possibly mount to metal plates.