Is a pot wheel always a 270 degree wheel then? i.e. Any listed as pot will work on a 270 wheel and I can get a spinner (or 2) for the 360 degree games
98% of them that say pot are 270 degree. If you want to get real technical, a few may have been
slightly more or less, but it won't make any noticeable difference. The only real outliers are Hard Drivin' & Race Drivin' which used a 10 turn pot. If I remember correctly, the wheel was limited to 7.5 turns.
So, in summary if I got a 270 degree wheel (Logitech MOMO or G25/27). BTW, the last 2 of these are listed as 900 degrees (2 1/2 turns) so would this not work as a 360 degree wheel for pole position to some degree? At least as long as you didn't let it recenter on crashing!
The G27 allows you to set the amount of rotation to anything you'd like as long as it's less than 900 degrees. This can be done on a per emulator or per game basis in the Profiler software I mentioned earlier. So you could have it automatically limited to 270 degrees when it detects MAME is running and 900 degrees when a PC game is running.
When it comes to Pole Position, 900 degrees still isn't endless spinning like the original was. It will work better than a wheel limited to less rotation, but it's still limited. If you keep crashing with the wheel turned the same direction, you'll run out of rotation. I tried it and wasn't happy, but that doesn't mean you can't give it a shot.
On spinners, I have a mini-pac which will connect to the Ultimarc spinner. However, the groovygamegear has a 7" wheel attachment (only 6" for ultimarc) but will it connect to the minipac in the same easy way the ultimarc one is supposed to?
I'm not familiar with the minipac. If you're buying a spinner for this purpose, the one from groovygamegear comes with the interface and you only save $7 by ordering it without the interface. If you already have the Ultimarc spinner, I'd just go with the wheel meant for it, even if it is smaller.
If you can pick up an old working 360 degree wheel control panel for cheap, the Opti-Wiz interface is only $15.
I just picked up one from the game badlands off ebay for $1 + $11 shipping.
I'd recommend going ahead and getting the G27 and trying to set up all the games you want to play with it regardless of whether they are 360 degree or not.
I haven't tried all of them. The ones that don't reset the steering like Pole Position might not be too bad. It might play well enough for your tastes.
Maybe someone will come along and patch the pole position driver to work better with 270 degree wheels.
The author of RacerMAME has it listed as one of the supported games. Not sure if he's done anything with the steering or just fixed the shifter.