About SimRacingCave
SimRacingCave exists because sim racing has an expensive failure mode: buying the parts in the wrong order. This site puts the numbers first so the order comes out right.
What this site is for
Most sim racing advice starts with the wheel. It should start with the room. A direct drive base bolted to a folding stand will move the stand. A 49 inch super ultrawide on a mid range graphics card will drop frames at exactly the moment a full grid funnels into turn one. A cockpit that does not fold gets resented by everyone else in the house within a month. Every one of those problems is visible in advance from a number that was available before purchase.
So the tools come first. The rig space calculator tells you whether the frame fits your room. The wheelbase torque calculator tells you whether your mounting can hold what you are about to buy. The triple monitor FOV calculator gives you the field of view angle that matches the screens you actually own. The gear guides then follow the same logic, with three tiers and an explicit statement of who should not buy the expensive one.
How we research
We compare published manufacturer specifications, documented torque and travel figures, product listings, and verified owner reviews. Derived numbers state their formula so you can check the arithmetic rather than trusting it.
We do not test gear in person, and we never claim to. There is a great deal of content in this category that implies hands-on testing of forty wheelbases, and almost none of it is true. Saying plainly what we do and do not do is worth more than a borrowed sentence about a test bench. Where a manufacturer does not publish a figure, we write "not published" rather than repeating a number from a forum. Logitech does not publish a newton metre rating for its gear driven wheels, for example, so we do not quote one.
What is on the site
| Section | Pages | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Calculators | 6 | Space, field of view, torque, build cost and PC requirements |
| Wheel specs | 45 | One page per real wheel or wheelbase with published figures |
| Gear guides | 12 | Three-tier buying guides with real prices |
| Setup guides | 12 | Assembly, seating position, calibration and force feedback |
| Comparisons | 8 | Head to head pages for the decisions that stall a build |
| Charts | 8 | Dense specification tables across models and formats |
How the site is funded
SimRacingCave is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. When you follow a product link and buy something, we may earn a commission at no additional cost to you. That funding model shapes two rules we hold to. First, the tier a product is placed in is decided before the link is added, not after. Second, every guide names the buyer who should spend less, because a reader who buys the right cheaper thing comes back and a reader who buys the wrong expensive thing does not.
Where a manufacturer sells mostly direct rather than through a marketplace, which is the case for Fanatec, Simagic, Simucube, Asetek, Sim-Lab and Trak Racer, we say so and link a scoped search rather than inventing a listing. Full details are in the affiliate disclosure.
How a page on this site gets built
Every content page follows the same five steps, and the order matters because it is what stops a recommendation being written before the evidence for it exists.
- Establish the specification first. Published manufacturer figures go into a data file before any prose is written, with a null where the manufacturer does not publish a figure. That is why the wheelbase torque chart has rows with no torque number rather than rows with an estimate.
- Verify the product exists and the price is real. Every product with a direct link was returned by a live product lookup and its returned title read against what the page claims. Nothing is linked from memory, and no identifier is ever invented.
- Do the arithmetic in the open. Derived figures print their formula. Field of view is panel width divided by viewing distance. Gain is working torque divided by peak torque. Brake force in newtons is kilograms times 9.80665. A reader can check every one.
- Name the buyer who should spend less. Every gear guide carries an explicit block about who should not buy the expensive tier, with a dollar figure. Talking people down is the most useful thing a gear page can do, and it is the part most sites omit.
- Cross-link the constraint, not just the topic. A page about a 21 Nm wheelbase links the frame that can react it, because the constraint is what decides whether the purchase works. That is why nearly every page here ends up pointing at the buying order.
What we deliberately do not do
| Common practice | What we do instead | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Claim hands-on testing of dozens of products | State plainly that we research rather than test | Any site claiming to have tested forty wheelbases is telling you a story |
| Fill every cell of a specification table | Leave a cell reading "not published" | A visible gap is more useful than an invented number |
| Rank products in one flat list | Split every category into three tiers | A $200 buyer and a $1,000 buyer are asking different questions |
| Link only products that pay a commission | Name products sold direct and link a scoped search | Leaving Fanatec and Simucube out would misrepresent the category |
| Recommend the most expensive option by default | Name who should buy the cheaper one, with a figure | Mismatched components are the expensive failure mode in this hobby |
| Add the current year to every title | Use years only where the data genuinely changes annually | Torque ratings and panel widths do not change with the calendar |
The through-line is that specific beats generic. A page saying a wheelbase is "powerful" helps nobody. A page saying it publishes 9 Nm, that a folding frame reacts about 8, and that you will therefore run it at 67 percent gain to get 6 Nm at the rim is a page someone can act on. That is the standard every chart, calculator and guide here is written to.
Corrections
Specifications change between hardware revisions and prices move constantly. If you find a figure on this site that does not match what the manufacturer publishes, tell us through the contact page and we will correct it. Specific corrections with a source are the most useful message we receive.