Sim racing marketing would love you to believe you need the most expensive pedals you can finance. Active haptics, 200 kg load cells, pedal sets that cost more than an actual track day. Some of that gear is brilliant. Most of it ends up bolted to setups that can't extract half of what they bought into.
I run Rival Performance, making aftermarket pedal parts, so I talk to pedal buyers all day. The most common mistake I see is people buying for the rig they wish they had instead of the setup they're actually sitting in. Work through the questions below in order and you'll mostly avoid it.
Console or PC?
Boring question first. If you race on console, check compatibility per model, not per brand, because the fine print can bite you.
Logitech is the classic example. The G-RS Pedals can plug straight into a PC over USB, but on PlayStation or Xbox they only work through a PRO or RS50 wheel base, and the base itself has to be the right console variant. Thrustmaster's T-LCM is one of the few load cell sets that works natively on both consoles, and Fanatec covers consoles through the selection of either your wheel base or wheel. Check the compatibility page before you fall for anything.
PC racers can skip this bit. Everything works on PC.
Sim rig, A-frame, or desk?
Before you look at a single spec sheet, be honest about where the pedals are going to live. It changes what you should buy substantially.
A load cell brake works on pressure rather than travel, and a proper stop on a heavy load cell means genuinely putting some strength into the pedal. Do that in an office chair with castors and you roll backwards. Every hard braking zone, you're pulling yourself back to the wheel with your arms while trying to steer with them at the same time. I've watched people conclude they're rubbish at braking when the actual problem is that their chair has wheels and they are tensing their whole body under braking to stop rolling around.
A proper rig. Bolted pedals, fixed seat. Buy what your budget allows as there are some great options at a number of price points. Some even fold away with your wheel and pedals in place. If you're in a sim rig, then it opens you up to firmer elastomers and heavy braking forces (though more on that later).
An A-frame stand. A decent compromise, with one condition: use a fixed chair. Some stands have cups that lock your chair's front castors, which helps, but a fixed chair is better, even a dining chair works wonders.
A desk. It's how we all got into sim racing, and I'm confident I have been humbled on lap times by plenty of people racing at a desk. Buy for the desk though: a lighter load cell, softer elastomers, brake force set low enough that a full stop doesn't shift your chair, as you're going to tip your desk over compensating for the roll. The G-RS ships with a wall brace in the box, so the pedals can push against a wall instead of a rig, which is a clever bit of design. When we built our damper kit for the G-RS we kept it compatible with wall-braced mode for exactly that reason. For a lot of G-RS owners, the wall is the rig.
Why a load cell brake is worth it
If you take one hardware recommendation from this page, take this one: get a load cell brake.
A standard pedal measures how far you've pushed. A load cell measures how hard. Your leg is much better at remembering pressure than distance, so braking at 60 per cent effort becomes something your body can repeat lap after lap, and repeatable braking is where lap time comes from. Nothing else you can buy improves your driving as much for the money.
Now the caveat. Budget load cell pedals ship soft, deliberately. The Moza SR-P comes with a comically soft spring. The G-RS ships with squishy foam-style elastomers, which I think is a real disservice to an otherwise excellent set of pedals. My guess is the makers do it so the pedals stay usable without a rig, since a brake most buyers can't physically press would generate a lot of returns. Whatever the reason, it means a budget load cell set arrives with an easy upgrade path: keep the soft parts while you're at a desk, fit firmer elastomers and springs when your mounting can take them. In that order. Firm parts with no rig just brings the rolling chair back.
How much load cell do you actually need?
Three numbers get run together when people talk about brake force. The sensor rating is the one on the box: 75, 100, 200 kg. Your calibrated force is what you'll actually set as full brake, and for most experienced racers, including quick ones, that lands somewhere between 50 and 80 kg. Then there's what your mounting can survive, which at a desk is well under 100 kg regardless of what the box says.
Real racing drivers brake with several g of deceleration multiplying their body weight into the pedal. You're not g-assisted at a desk. Unless you've got the world's biggest quads and can't feel anything under 100 kilos, a sensor rated past 100 kg does nothing for you at home. Some headroom above your calibrated force is worth having. Three times it is not.
The 75 kg cell in the G-RS is fine for most people, honestly. For what it's worth, we test our own parts to 150 kg, and to 100 kg for the G-RS kit because its load cell is only rated to 75, so the aftermarket parts won't be your weak point.
Spend your attention on adjustability instead: pedal angles, spacing, pedal face heights, preload. Hardware you can make fit your legs beats an extra hundred kilos of sensor you'll never load.
The budget picks: Logitech G-RS or Moza SR-P?
These two made proper load cell braking affordable. Both are great units. My pick is the G-RS, and for a couple of reasons.
Firstly, it's just a really well thought out set of pedals: solid pressed steel with mounting holes for expansion and modularity, the wall brace, easy elastomer swaps, and Logitech's software support behind it. You probably have Logitech's G HUB on your PC already, so it's a painless install. Secondly, anyone who started on a G25, G27, G29 or G923 knows how this goes. Logitech gear refuses to die. It may go a little rattly after years of abuse but they know how to build a durable part.
The SR-P is a fair first load cell set at a sharp price. I sell parts for it, so I've handled plenty, and it's built to a price point: thinner metal, lighter gauge screws, a few corners cut. None of that stops it doing the job. If the price difference matters to you, buy it and enjoy it. Moza has since added the SRP2 at the same end of the market, worth a look too.
Racing on console changes things: neither of these two works on PlayStation or Xbox on its own. Thrustmaster's T-LCM (US$249.99) is the answer there, a step up in price but the cheapest load cell brake that plugs natively into both consoles, and a perfectly good set on PC too.
A shout-out to Simagic's range here as well. The new P700 looks like exceptional value: US$189 for the two-pedal set with a 150 kg load cell, sitting above their P500 and below the P1000. I don't make parts for them, but if you're on PC they're worth a look.
Logitech's own PRO Pedals deserve a mention here. Lovely hardware, plenty of built-in adjustment. The catch is that the design gives third-party makers very little to bolt onto, so the aftermarket around them is thin. Our own PRO damper kit took a long time to crack for exactly that reason. The G-RS turned out to be a mod platform almost by accident, and if tinkering appeals to you, that difference matters more than the spec sheets suggest.
What should you buy once you have a rig?
A rig and a fixed seat make heavier elastomers and higher braking forces usable, and whilst the above mentioned units shouldn't be excluded, you're also opening yourself up to some great mid-tier options. Three sets I'd put in front of people at this level, at official prices as I write:
- Fanatec CSL Elite Pedals V2 (US$329.99 / A$399.90). The default benchmark of the tier. Cast aluminium, very adjustable, and one of the largest install bases in sim racing, which matters for parts and mods. One quirk: the throttle and clutch springs can get squeaky. A single drop of oil once a year sorts it.
- Moza CRP2 (US$399 / A$649). The spec heavyweight of the band: 200 kg load cell and plenty of adjustment combinations to get them sitting just right.
- Simagic P1000 (US$469). The tinkerer's choice. Properly modular, with variants up to and including a factory hydraulic damper.
Console support mostly disappears at this level, so check it again before you commit. The Fanatec V2s do consoles through a PlayStation or Xbox licensed Fanatec wheel base. The CRP2 is PC out of the box, Xbox only through a Moza base with an Xbox rim, and PlayStation only via a third-party adapter. Simagic is PC territory. If you're on console, the T-LCM back in the budget section is the honest pick, or commit to the Fanatec ecosystem.
The above is not a ranking, as it comes down to personal preference and price, but I would happily recommend any of the above to those looking for their first pedal set. They solve different problems: the V2 for parts and mod support, the CRP2 for outright spec, the P1000 for tinkering. Above them sit the properly high-end options, Heusinkveld and friends, plus new arrivals like Fanatec's Podium Pedals at US$699.99. Those sit beyond what this guide is trying to solve.
One reassurance while you compare. Pedals are mechanically simple, a couple of position sensors and a load cell, so driver support is a much smaller gamble than with wheel bases. A company with a track record is enough.
And a note on second-hand. One of the greatest things about this pastime is that you can upgrade your parts as you grow in the sport, which means there are some excellent bargains in buying a used set of pedals, and they might even include some extra mods if you're lucky.
Buy for the aftermarket
Declaring an interest before this section: aftermarket pedal parts are what Rival Performance makes. Take the argument on its merits and consider your options.
Half the joy of this hobby is making your gear your own, and there are plenty of frustrated sim racers out there with expensive pedals nobody makes anything for. The economics are dull and predictable. A mod takes real prototyping and tooling money, so third-party makers build for pedals with a big install base, and exotic low-volume pedals rarely get supported no matter how good they are.
So if you think you'll want to tweak, and most of us end up wanting to, look at modularity and aftermarket support before you buy. Exposed mounting points, standard fasteners, swappable elastomers. The deepest third-party support right now sits around the Fanatec CSL Elite family and the Logitech ecosystem, with Thrustmaster a little behind. That support is worth as much as any line on the spec sheet.
Elastomers, springs and dampers: the two-minute version
I'm finalising a test rig to measure all of this properly, and there'll be a full article with real force curves once it's done. The short version for now.
Springs compress at a steady rate until they bind. Elastomers, the rubbery cylinders in most load cell brakes, start easy and ramp up hard as the material runs out of room. That ramp is most of what people mean by brake feel. Shape changes the ramp: a plain cylinder ramps steep with less compression, a tapered elastomer builds more progressively. You can also stack different elastomers, mixing hardnesses, or a soft spring on top of firmer elastomers so you get light initial travel for fine modulation and then a firm ramp behind it. Try stacking before you spend money on anything else.
When you do buy elastomers, two questions. What Shore hardness is the material, and will the maker even tell you? And is it a solid piece of soft material, or a firmer material manufactured with partial infill to imitate softness? The infill trick feels right for a while, but bending a firm material is not the same as squishing a soft one, and the stress concentrates at the flex points until it cracks. A maker who knows their material will happily tell you what it is. Our Tracktility elastomers, for the record, are solid 60A TPU, standard and tapered profiles, high rebound, low memory, five-year guarantee. Split one, just send it back to us and we'll replace it.
Dampers are the third tool. They change the character of the travel rather than the weight of it. On the brake, hydraulic damping smooths the pressure trace. New load cell users tend to brake in peaks: squeeze, lock, back off, squeeze again, and every lockup heats the tyre so it gets harder and harder to brake on the limit. With damping in the stack you get a cleaner build of pressure which is easier to modulate while you wind on steering, which is most of what trail braking asks of your foot. On the throttle, a light damper sounds pointless until you try it. It takes the twitch out of corner exits, and the pedal makers who sell throttle dampers say the same thing. One caution: pedals with hydraulics built in are usually lightly damped and not adjustable. If damping is the feel you're after, favour a set where the damper can be swapped, or add an adjustable kit to the pedals you already own.
The mods I'd skip
Two-stage clutch kits that fake a bite point. I understand the appeal, but every car in the sim models its own bite point. In iRacing I find the FIA F4 launches best around 34 to 35 per cent pedal, and the bite point on a 992, Miata, a GR86 and an M2 all sit somewhere else. A mechanical detent in your pedal is lucky to be correct for one car and guaranteed to be wrong for the rest, unless you fancy crawling under the desk to re-adjust between races. Serious setups handle bite points in software with active pedals. So, smooth, repeatable clutch resistance beats a fake detent in a fixed spot for 99 per cent of racers.
The other one, repeated because I see it constantly: parts stiffer than your mounting can use. Firm elastomers on a rolling chair make everything harder, not better.
Now stop tweaking
This advice costs me sales, but I'll give it anyway. Once you've got a decent set of load cell pedals, leave them alone for a while.
Braking consistency is muscle memory, and muscle memory needs repetition against a fixed target. Swap elastomers every few races chasing an edge and you're erasing the thing you're trying to build. Some genuinely quick racers run budget wheel-and-pedal bundles and just get on with driving.
After some real seat time, mod to fix something you've actually noticed. Peaky, pulsing brake traces and weak trail braking usually want damping. If you're bottoming the pedal out early and living at the end of its travel, that's firmer or tapered elastomers. If light braking is hard to modulate, try a light spring at the top of the stack.
If you can't name the problem, you don't need the mod yet. The best mod you can make is practice. The best addition to any sim rig is experience. Everyone loves new gear, me included, but sometimes new gear is not the answer.
A quick word on pedal position
None of this works if you're fighting your seating position. Cramped shins, an over-extended ankle at full brake, a screen that drags your eyes down: it all corrupts braking before the hardware matters. A proper seating and pedal position guide is on my list, but there are plenty of excellent ones out there already. Until then the online rig-position calculators are decent, and the short version is to keep your heel planted comfortably for the braking motion and your brake force set so a maximum stop doesn't move your chair or cause fatigue.
FAQ
Do I need a sim rig for load cell pedals?
No, but match the pedal to the mounting. At a desk, choose a lighter cell (the G-RS's 75 kg is ideal), keep the elastomers soft, set the force low, and use a wall brace if your pedals have one. A rig lets you run firmer setups, but you don't need one to start.
What brake force should I actually set?
Most experienced racers calibrate somewhere between 50 and 80 kg, and less at a desk. Start soft, get consistent, and add force only when you want more resolution at the top. Stiffer is not automatically faster.
Should I upgrade my pedals or my wheel first?
Pedals. Braking is where the lap time is, and a load cell brake improves your driving faster than any wheel upgrade at the same price.
Is the stock G29 or G923 brake good enough to learn on?
Yes. The fundamentals, the racing line, brake markers, smooth release, all transfer completely. Upgrade when the pedal is what's limiting you.
Are 3D printed elastomers any good?
Depends on the material, not the printing. A solid piece of soft TPU, say 60A, behaves properly. A firm material printed with sparse infill to imitate softness will degrade at the flex points. Ask the maker for the Shore hardness of the actual material, and if they won't say, walk away.
Do I need a clutch pedal at all?
For most racing, no. Very few competitive sim racers use one, and those that do mostly use it just for lights-out. Buy the two-pedal set and put the savings into the brake.
That's the lot. If you're stuck between two options, email contact@rivalperformance.com with your setup and I'll give you a straight answer. And remember, the best addition to any sim rig is experience.