I’m going to share my experience with Logitech’s Pro series racing setup, including the DD11 base and pro pedals, but we’ll also be upgrading this setup with Logitech’s recent addition of accessories in the R series, including the hub, wheel, and shifter, and to bring everything together we’ll be using the Logitech Challange x playset.
While we won’t be paying for a track day fee or buying a spare set of tires this is still a costly and premium setup and even though we won’t be able to replicate the g forces you get during real racing, for the amount that this set up costs I want to see just how close we can get and take a look at what exactly this premium setup offers starting with the pro series base and pro pedals and then moving to the hub wheel and shifter/handbrake out of the r series followed by of course the play seat.
Okay, starting with the heart of the setup is the Pro DD11 series base for PC, coming in at $599, that DD11 stands for direct drive motor and is rated for up to 11nm of torque which is by far their biggest selling point.
Since there’s no way to replicate the g-forces you would experience in real-life racing with an at-home setup one of the main ways to get feedback on important factors like traction, weight transfer, steering, and even real-world terrain is through the force feedback in the wheel and while many modern cars now have power steering to reduce the amount of power required to move the steering wheel if you’ve ever been to your local go-kart track you probably know that racing can require a good amount of strength to turn the steering wheel.
When I started out I had the limit set to around 5nm and while this was fine after bringing it up to 11 and turning the true force feedback to high I felt a night and day difference.
For context, the true-force feedback Logitech mentions essentially allows the motor to deliver higher frequency vibrations to attempt to replicate more granular details like road surface or engine noise. While I wouldn’t call it a game-changer by any means I think in moderation this is a nice touch to try and get as much feedback as possible but when cranking it up high the vibrations can be a bit overwhelming so I opted to tone it down significantly.
As for the regular force feedback with the 11nm, it was great feeling those strong spikes when hitting bumps in dirt 2.0
As for the additional features here, I found it fairly easy to navigate through the settings through the small LCD display and knobs on the wheel. They also added a feature where it shows you how much you’re turning but with the display being so small it was a bit hard to keep track of.
The overall construction quality is high end although It’s a bit bulkier than some of the other options on the market. In addition, it also has built-in cooling. The ports are a bit dated with USB and a micro USB and the power supply is fairly large.
Moving on to the Pro pedals these come in at $349 and it seems like the biggest differences here between these pro pedals and previous models is going to be the load cells as well as the adjustability of the pedals.
Unlike entry level pedals which use potentiometers to measure the distance the pedal travels, load cell pedals measure the force being used to give a more consistent and accurate racing performance
And to adjust the stiffness you can swap out the springs to make the clutch and gas to feel firmer or softer, and you can use swappable elastomers for the brake to make it feel softer or harder depending on the type of car you want to go for.
Both gas and brake use contactless hall effect sensors which are great for durability purposes. For adjustability, you can move each pedal around to try and replicate the race configuration you want to go for. The overall finishes and quality felt robust and on par with what I would expect out of load cell pedals
Now moving on to the newer accessories we’re updating this setup with, coming from Logitech’s R series we’re gonna start off with the hub and wheel. For a while now Logitech’s ecosystem has been pretty limited compared to the competition and finally, they’ve brought some more options for wheels. The RS wheel hub comes in between $129 and $149 depending on whether it’s for pc or Xbox and pc.
This hub comes with adjustable gear shifters, offers a customizable rgb strip up top that can act as a rev bar and overall has a nice quality feel to it. With the hub, you can switch between their track wheel which is what I have here as well as the round wheel and the MOMO x Logitech SIM GT 320 and GT Racer 290 but it can also get quite pricey when stacking up those costs. On the other hand, you could also opt for their RS QR adapter which is a more affordable 69.99 and lets you use 2.75 in & 2 in PCD aftermarket steering wheels.
But if you end up going with the hub then you’ll also be getting these adjustable magnetic gear-shift paddles.
Moving onto the wheels The track wheel comes in at $69.99 features a dimpled dot pattern for better ventilation, and grip, and has some overall decent construction quality the only downside is it might feel small for some with a Height of 7.28 in and a Length of 11.46 in
As for the shifter and handbrake combo, this comes in at $149 and can act as either a sequential shifter or handbrake. The versatility here is great but it does mean that you are limited to sequential shifting and not an H-shaped shifter. It also takes a decent amount of effort to engage so I opted to use the hub’s paddle shifter and used this as a handbrake. Another pro here is that it’s quite adjustable. In addition to physically adjusting it the G HUB Software Tuning can adjust the sequential shifter’s actuation point and the handbrake’s response curve to your preference in the Logitech G HUB software.
Now to bring everything together I used the Playseat® Challenge X which comes in at $299 and is Logitech’s lightweight, quick-to-setup racing seat. It was fairly easy to set up and helped bring everything together although the mounting for the shifter was a bit weaker than I would have liked for the force needed to engage it but the base seemed to hold up pretty well even when wrangling it while set to 11nm.
I do wish the seat material was made out of something slightly more comfortable and sturdy, the straps that hold the fabric in place are okay but definitely not as sturdy as I would have liked.
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