Driving cab conversion questions

[XNIF]

Next week i'll get my Sega Rally twin for my mame conversion. I just needed one... but there was another one attached
it took me about a year to find one (or two) that was nice and fair priced.  So... i took my time and found it.
It's a complete Sega Rally twin, working! I'll sell the PCB's to make the project cheaper.
Now i have some question that i cannot find the answers to:

1) Is there a front end that will operate just with a steering wheel and buttons where i can select PC games and mame games?
2) Is there a complete shopping list for me what to get ?
3) Did someone else use a Sega Rally as donor and have a howto/project ?
 
And some more questions i'll add later!

[BadMouth]

1) Any frontend that works with a gamepad should work with a steering wheel.
    I haven't seen one that scrolls horizontally though.  
    Mbasile is getting close by tweaking Hyperspin: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=114400.msg1223406#msg1223406

2) Depends on how you are going to go about the conversion.  
    Hacking a pc wheel or buying an interface (which would forgo ffb)?
    Sticking with the arcade monitor or swapping in a TV?

3)  I think Gbeef's cab started out as a Sega Rally, but there's not much left of it.  
     See the examples listed in the Driving Cab Thread linked to in my sig.

If you're knowledgeable about electronics, consider doing this hack to interface the controls.
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&ie=UTF8&prev=_t&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=fr&tl=en&twu=1&u=http://www.gamoover.net/tuto/l2m2-interfacer-un-ffb-et-volant-sega-model-12-avec-un-pc-ou-une-playstation-23
I'm told by people who have tried everything that it is the most true to the original arcade feel.
(It will only work with the original Sega Rally controls.  If it's Sega Rally 2, it won't work)

Set up your software first to make sure that you'll be able to play the games you want.  Driving cabs are a PITA to set up.
Just getting the various emulators to launch and go fullscreen takes a lot of trial and error, regardless of front-end.
You'll end up running 5 or 6 emulators just to get 40 or 50 arcade games that play well.  
After you have your list, the controls for every game must be set up and tweaked individually to get them to feel right.

Do you already have a PC?  If not, what were you thinking about getting?
It takes some serious power to run Supermodel and the newer 3D games in MAME.
There's been a lot of improvement to Ridge Racer, Ace Driver, and some of the Gaelco games in MAME recently.
They run beautifully, but it takes a beast to run them full speed.  (my driving cab can't)

[XNIF]

Thank you for your answers and help!
My idea is to things like Sega Rally and Daytona but I am not sure if they are correctly emulated yet... 
I want to use the normal 15Khz arcade monitor maybe swap it for a tri , i am not sure yet. I want to keep the cabinet in it's original state as mucht as possible. I want to hack the original hardware and make it work through a logitech controller.  Force feedback is a must.  I want to original HAPP parts, not a ---smurfy--- logitech FFB.

I want to use a frontend that let's me select games run with multiple emulators.  I love the old Model 2 and 3 games, and some NAOMI games.
Also PC games i want to add to the list. I have a 5 ghz 6-core intel i7(Gulftown) , i do not think there is anything faster  

[XNIF]

Does anyone know how this works: playing 31khz games on a 15khz monitors? does it work out of the box?

[BadMouth]

Does anyone know how this works: playing 31khz games on a 15khz monitors? does it work out of the box?

It doesn't appear to as far as Model 2 is concerned. 
I'm basing that on RetroRepair's video where he has to physically switch a jumper on a dual sync monitor (6:50 in)

(He's using the logitech wheel hack linked to above)

I've never messed with real arcade monitors. 
If you ask in a separate thread, the monitor gurus who might not click on a driving cab thread will probably have a good answer.

[XNIF]

Well i am going for the Logitech 2 Model 2 PCB.  It does not look too difficult to me, just a single layer PCB with a few components, i can do that.
 First things first...   my twin is coming this saturday and i will plan from there.  It will be some work to drive to Belgium (from the Netherlands) to get the thing with a truck i hired.  I am not looking forward in getting it , but i do look forward in having it in my garage!

[brad808]

Well i am going for the Logitech 2 Model 2 PCB.  It does not look too difficult to me, just a single layer PCB with a few components, i can do that.
 First things first...   my twin is coming this saturday and i will plan from there.  It will be some work to drive to Belgium (from the Netherlands) to get the thing with a truck i hired.  I am not looking forward in getting it , but i do look forward in having it in my garage!

Keep us posted on this I'd love to see how the model 2 motor hack goes. I was interested in it but decided against it due to the lack of information in English. If i could read French I probably would have given it a shot.

Sent from my Desire HD