I wanna go fast...

ChanceKJ · October 31, 2023

Remember that time we got kicked outta biology for playin' with Matchbox cars?...

Ok, a bit of a primer here: I am not a PC guy. The last time I built any kind of PC (that wasn't inside a gaming controller) was almost 17 years ago. Back then for a brief period of time I worked for a small shop in Red Deer that built custom computers and sold Warhammer. Since then I was a technician at Apple, I restore old Arcade hardware from the 70's and 80's, and I refuse to acknowledge the existence of a PC Master Race (#FightingWords) . Ask anyone who's known me for the last 39 years of my life: Not a PC guy. But what I am is a McLaren fan. Like, grew up with papaya orange blood in my veins, childhood hero was Senna, made a pilgrimage from my home in Alberta to Donnington Park to see the collection kinda fan. A few years back a buddy of mine from Apple started getting deep into Sim racing after a bunch of us spent the evening at a now defunct Racing Sim venue here in Calgary. Since then every time the Wife and I would visit them for dinner I'd always end up spending the better part of the evening glued to the alcantara steering wheel attached to his simulator. Then one day I had a weird idea that I should build my own, but something a little ostentatious, over the top, likely not practical, and most definitely not fiscally responsible, (all of which I have a tendency to do when I focus on a new project).

By this point I had discovered the ridiculously crazy Overdrive PC case from Azza and I knew that it had to be the jumping off point for something cool. I absolutely HATE the idea of 3 split monitors whit the stupid little plastic blenders to cover the middle bezels so a Samsung G95NC is in order. I haven't really landed on what I'm doing for a racing seat/frame yet, or pedals and a wheel base for that matter, but I know I'd like to have the ability to go from F1/LMP posture to GT without too much work. However I also really like the idea of getting my hands on a full cockpit shell like the FRS from Moza and wrapping it in McLaren colours and sponsors using my Cricut. I think it's funny that on most sim rigs you see the PC looks like an afterthought, hidden away in the back where you cant get to it or see it. I'm aiming to mount the Azza case on some sort of frame behind the seat (Read: Proper engine placement to go fast).

For those not in the know, McLaren has been using some form of a Mercedes AMG High Performance Powertrains engine for the better part of the last 30 years (...we dont talk about 2015-2020 in this house). So the idea is to theme the PC in the direction of the look of the current Mercedes-AMG M14 E Performance V6 turbo hybrid engine. Carbon wrap, orange and black corrugated loom for the wire management, blue zip ties, and the occasional bright red fitting. For spec of the PC we're not going toooo crazy, but somewhat practical with a long game upgrade path: AMD 7800X3D, ROG X670E-E, Gskill DDR 5, WD Black SN850x boot drive, and a placeholder of a GPU in the form of an MSI 3070 Ti (im not buying into 4000 series either). A smattering of BeQuiet! Lightwings, Keychron K6, Razor Basilisk v3 Pro, will round out the build. The cooling loop(s) will be as much for looks as they are to burn a hole in my wallet, 8 (eight) Alphacool radiators, custom mounting brackets, enough EK parts to bankrupt a small country, and some monitoring bits from Aquacomputer. I'll get this out of the way now, the loop idea is borrowed from the Chillblast Icon F1, but I know I can improve on it both for drainage and looks. No matter what you tell me, it's not as crazy or involved as plumbing out a pool. I do have a soft spot for PC games from the 90's so when I realized Homeworld 3 had been announced I decided at the very least allow this build to also take advantage of more then just the ability to take the apexes on Eau Rouge and Raidillon.

Budget wise, ...I'm not sure how to write this part, but there is no budget... I work in the camera department in Film and Television, and this last summer has been quite hard on a lot of us. Rightfully so, we're going to be spending money in places I know are stupid. Chillblast wants to charge people £10,000 British pounds for theirs. I can do it for less than a third of that. That being said though it makes more sense to do this in phases:

Phase 1: Build a PC

Phase 2: Liquid cool said PC

Phase 3: Build a Sim rig

Phase 4: Go Fast.

Spoiler Alert: I'm already done Phase 1, but thats not going to stop me from documenting this build step by step here on the LTT forums. As with every project I work on, I like to document the progress on my Flickr account. If you wanna read ahead, or see more pictures of the build you can always head over there and check out the ever expanding gallery I have there. At any rate, let's get started...