Get the book, not the ECCI. The wheel wont help, but knowledge and practice will. It will also take time (lots of it).

Charlie, I too am 4 - 5 seconds off pace, always have been and expect I probably always will be. But I still go out and race anyway. I just try to be careful about not hitting anyone passing me (since I rarely pass anyone else). I've been doing this for a few years, but not religiously, like some of the guys here do. Like Tim says - practice, LOTS of practice, which I don't take the time to do, so I don't expect to be any faster than I am. Setups don't make all that big a difference, not in seconds, maybe tenths of seconds, but not whole seconds of time, that just comes with lots and lots of practice.

wow.. sounds like me. how long have you been sim racing???

Look me up if you buy the wheel and it dosent help. I like the black one.lol

I practice each track for about 10 hours. I follow the racing line of guys in the top 5. Not the aliens. I use a piece of crap Logitech Momo, and the brakes absolutly suck. They are either locked up, or non-existant. What I don't understand is, how can people use a brake point when I need to brake 50 feet earlier? That inevitably leads to getting hit in the rear, if I'm actualy lucky enough to have someone behind me! I just don't want to ruin someone's race due to my lack of talent, knowledge or equipment. The wheel works great on GTR2, but on RACE it has this tendancy to wander. Going down a straight, it just drifts off track all on it's own if you don't jerk it back. If I was to use it in real life, I would be pulled over for a suspected DUI! I won't be leaving R2P because I love this site. Never meet a nicer group of people. I will be out there in some series,(slower ones), but really love GT racing. I'll put one of my guitars on ebay and get the wheel, read a ton of books, practice my ass off, and hopefuly be in the top 10. Thanks Tim for the advice about practice, knowledge and not getting the wheel, but you should try this piece of crap wheel and brake system. Next time Michael Bush and Steve Wood come over,I'll have them try it and they'll attest to it.

yea MOMO, doesnt really cut it, with todays standerd, you need a G25 atleast, if your trying to take sim racing seriously.

the way i have adapted to getting faster lap times, is practicing slow in fast out, most of the time when i try and brake super super late, it slows me dowm. allthough it feels fast!. the times dont lie.

and secondley. in practice, i push the car super hard. i figure out how hard i can push the car, in my head, im like no way the car can cut this corner at this speed. but then it works when i try it. and i just refine the aproach from there.

Agree with Tim M 100%. Get a book. I recommend Going Faster from the Skip Barber Racing School but I'm sure others will have their favorite books as well. I just think Going Faster is a great book for a beginner. It helped me a lot.

yea i have going faster book, its a great book. its everything you should and need to know all in one book.

i read when i first got started in my real life racing, i neeed to re read the book, im sure i would absorb it better now days

Hey Charlie, you say you're having problems with wandering in RACE down the straights. Have you tried playing with the speed sensitive steering. I forget if the setting should be higher or lower, but trying adding and subtracting in 10% increments. You should notice a big difference. Play with it to get it feeling correct. And also, I still use a Driving Force Pro, which is similar to the momo, and while its not great, it should be adequate. I know plenty of people who are fast in these cheaper wheels.

Tim's right; you don't need a fancy controller. In fact over the years some of the fastest guys around have been using fairly pedestrian equipment. Wolfgang Woeger used to kill everyone in GPL with a joystick and pedals. I myself was quicker back when I was using an old wingman formula non-ff wheel and CH pedals than I am with a G25, so speed is not about the equipment. It does help with enjoyment though, and I highly recommend the G25; impossible to beat for anywhere near the price.

That said, before spending any money you need to be sure your wheel is working as it should and that it's set up right. You might borrow or try out another wheel if you can. Also, Logi Momo's are known for having reliability issues (even when relatively new) so you may have a hardware issue. What you can do is:

1. Go to wingmanteam.com, check the gadgets page and grab dxtweak2 and install it to see if your controllers are behaving like they should. It will show you graphically and numerically how the response is as you operate your controls, and let you tweak them if need be. Might look at the Momo centering utility as well. dxtweak's not hard to use, but post for help on the forums there if you need it.

2. Also be sure to check your controller setup in game; you generally want all the things you have mapped to the axes like wheel and pedals at 50% sensitivity or very near it, which in ISI land means linear response - get too far from that and you are in zones that are meant for joysticks and other types of controllers and it will be very hard to control. Also make sure you have your FF set correctly for the Momo, or else the forces will be backwards. Not sure about the Momo but Logitechs usually need to have the values for FF in the negative side of the scale, or click the "invert forces" button depending on the game. I set the speed sensitivity to zero since if everything else is OK, you generally won't need anything to damp the response as you go faster.

From your comments about weaving and trouble getting closer to average lap times, it sounds like you have some configuration or hardware issues that are giving you stability problems; most likely the former.

Good luck getting it sorted!