Well, it had to happen. My old (really old) Logi FormulaForceGP (reviewed here;
http://www.epinions.com/content_95961517700) finally started getting twitchy potentiometers in the pedals and became more than irritating after I placed badly in a couple of online races. I've been eyeing some "high-end" race controllers from BRD and FrexGP, but being the budget-minded and generally cheap bastard that I am, I have a hard time justifying the expense.
Logitech halted production on this wheel in the fall of last year and replaced it with the Logitech MomoRacing. The good news about the MomoForce is that prices steadily dropped last year to an amazingly low $95. The bad news is that they are darn near impossible to find anywhere anymore save used on eBay -- I've seen this wheel sell for well over $300 there and that should clue you in on how good a wheel this is in general (although I've seen auctions fetch more money for PEZ dispensers, so maybe that's not a good indicator after all).
Needless to say, the MomoForce was indeed a large and welcome upgrade in almost all regards from the WingmanFormulaForceGP.
Quality/Looks
Comparing the FFGP to the Momo isn't really fair to the GP. It's bigger, it's heavier, it's got leather on the wheel and polished aluminum diamond plate on the pedal base. Everything about this wheel is heavier, more stout and of generally a far better construction in both build quality and materials. It even comes with some snazzy stickers to complete the Momo race color theme so you can feel like you've got a Ferarri333SP or Porsche 935K3 clamped to your desk--well, maybe not.
The Pedals
The pedal base itself carries the same design (and most of the internal layout) from it's older sibling, the WingmanFormulaForce (the all-red, non GP version). The FormulaForce is almost legendary in the hardcore sim community as it was truly competative with handbuilt controllers like Thomas, ECCI and BRD in those days. Without the build quality, but also at 1/10th the cost. IMHO, it was a giant step for Logi to make something of this caliber; it was expensive (for a mass-marketed Consumer item), probably (relatively) expensive for them to make, and was ultimately a flop as not many were sold. Lets face it, people that would actually pay for and appreciate a quality wheel/pedal controller combo are a literal drop in the bucket sales number wise. But it *did* have fairly good layout to the pedal base.
The general layout and design of the Momo's pedals don't really vary that much; The only real difference that I can find is the polished aluminum diamond plate deck and the pivoting Momo pedals. The same gripes and complaints about the FF's pedals are still true and unfortunately carry over to the Momo; The base has nothing but small-ish rubber feet on the bottom making them slide around on carpet and the brake pedal is a tad undersprung. All in all though, I feel both of these complaints are really minor and easily fixed. Accuracy and control are pretty much where they need to be, although I would have preffered a little more travel in either pedal. Of note are the changed layout in cabling; the USB and power connections are in the pedal base, meaning that only *1* wire snakes up to the desktop (hopefully) keeping the clutter on the floor and out of sight. I wish alot more peripherals did stuff this way.
The Wheel
While the housing itself certainly resembles the much older FormulaForce, the resemblance pretty much stops there. You are greated at first touch by a very nicely leather wrapped and hand-stitched wheel. There are 6 programmable buttons on the face of the wheel and 2 large aluminum paddle shifters behind. All are with easy reach, although the bottom two buttons on the front face are a little bit of a stretch even to my large-ish hands.
The big dissappointment with the Momo Force compared to the Forumula Force is that the force feedback internals are no longer the silky-smooth cable and pulley internals. Instead, it's been replaced by a set of gears that more closely resemble the FFGP wheel's internals. Comparing the geared vs. cable drive, I am shocked at how much *smoother* moving the wheel around on the old ForumulaForce is compared to the geared Momo Force.
Offseting the "not as good as" geardrive, is the actual wheel support itself. All of Logitech's wheels have been supported with bushings on the center shaft; brass/oilight on the FormulaForce to cheap plastic in the FFGP. All except the Momo Force. Logitech has blessed the Momo with nice sealed bearings this time around, and oh what a difference it makes! Absolutely *NO* slop in any direction from the center wheel shaft. None. I can't begin to describe what the leather and the bearings do to convey a much higher feel of quality then any of Logi's other efforts.
Feedback/Precision
Either Logi has gotten that good at making hardware, or I'm starting to take Immersion's feedback implementation for granted, but IMHO it's everything the FFGP was but made better by a much stronger and quicker reacting feedback motor. Yes, the pully system felt better--but only when not actually playing games. Once you are rolling out of pitlane, all the gear noise i was wrinkling my nose at earlier and the "crunchy" feel of the gears meshing compared to the silkysmooth of the cable drive dissappeared into inconsequentiality (is that a word?). The feedback had all the subtleties that I liked about the FFGP, but they were that much more convincing and that much more immediate with the stronger motor. It's almost like you could feel the tire tracking over the individual bumps on a rumblestrip whereas before you'd just get a sortof "buzz".
My opinion of Logi's profiler software hasn't changed since I reviewed the FFGP; install it to gain access to split axis funcions and then forget about it.
Precision is leaps and bounds over the FFGP. What I thought was pretty good with the FFGP now feels like poo after the Momo. There's a big difference. I can't say that my laptimes have dramatically improved, or even changed at all. I can say that running at full pace is somehow less fatigueing than it was. Kinda like listening to a pair of MartinLogan speakers at high volume and then listening to some "home theater in a box" speakers at high volume....the cheaper speakers just leave you feeling fatigued, even if they don't sound altogether bad.
The *ONLY* gripe I've got about the actual use of the wheel is that the center calibration sometimes wanders off to the left about 3deg. At first I thought this was the game modelling front end damage or something, but it turns out to be a bug in the driver. There are tweaks and fixes/workarounds, but why the heck can't logi figure out how to make good drivers? It's not a hardware issue.... And if there's a tweak or workaround, how come this can't be written into the drivers?!??
Overall
*THIS* is undoubtedly the "consumer" level pedal and wheel combo to get. Build quality is so much higher than anything else under $300 that it's silly to even try to compare. The only thing missing is a 3rd clutch pedal and H-Shifter really. This wheel also works flawlessly with GranTurismo2 on the Playstation2 much to my surprise. :)
Conclusion
If you are even remotely interested in getting a new wheel for your PC and you happen to see a new one at a computer fair or something somewhere for $130 or less -- grab it! These are *impossible* to find anymore. If anyone's got one they wanna sall, email me -- I want another!
