STOP. THE. CLOCK.
During my unboxing and build of the GT Rig from JooTech, I became an instant fan of the sturdy build quality and powder-coated finish. Once the rig was ready for me to game on, and I checked out the actual pricing, including the various addon options, I was totally blown away! JooTech, you had me at HOTAS mount!
I honestly don’t know where to begin and end with this review because I am still smiling. The offering from JooTech is, by a country mile, the best value-for-money simulation rig available on the market, anywhere in the world, full stop. Do I still need to put a full stop after I say full stop? Because I can’t stress the full stop enough. FULL STOP. loool
If you are interested in sim racing and have yet to dip your toes into the sweet, silky, warm waters that is the bottomless pit of the sport, or you have the basics covered with a wheel and pedal solution connected to your desk, or you have a sim that is frustrating you because it sucks seconds off your sector times, or if you need an urgent upgrade on a budget, then JooTech may just have the solution.
They manufacture two steel-constructed rigs and one higher-priced aluminium offering covering all forms of racing categories. The JooTech GT Rig, currently at the NAG office, as well as the GTR-X1 Extrusion Rig, caters for racing GT3 and GT4 cars in games such as iRacing and Assetto Corsa and rally cars in Dirt.
The next offering available is the JooTech Formula Rig, which is geared toward an F1-style open-wheel gaming experience with a seat height that is more in line with your pedals. Either one of the steel base frames, excluding the seat, will cost you less than R5,000 and the aluminium GTR-X1 Extruded Rig is R12,500 excluding shipping. From there, based on your requirements, you can then add accessories and add-ons to your purchase. So, should you want to use your sister’s City Golf seat that’s just gathering dust in the back yard, no problem. She won’t mind at all.
Fancy installing the seat from your 323i Beemer you wrote off last year because you ran out of talent hooking it around Gillooly’s Interchange, sweetness, no problem. It will fit on the GT Rig without drilling any more holes.
Jootech does offer various seats should you want to get a fresh seat instead of stealing the one from your sister. They also have you covered with a keyboard mount that fits on either side of the rig, a joystick and gear lever mount, and even monitor arms. The rig also offers castor wheels as an added option for those who need to move the rig around the home or office more easily.
I have to say that having the castor wheels in place made the build process super easy by allowing the rig to swivel around whilst tightening bolts. That said, once fully built, it does make sense to be able to move the rig to a corner and wheel it out again when needed for a race. Trust me, it will make your partner happier when your rig isn’t always occupying the centre of the lounge. #Netflix>SimRig makes partners smile more.
The Jootech GT Rig includes a standard single VESA mount bracket, and I do believe that the arms are sturdy enough for multiple monitors, although we only received the single monitor offering for this review. In terms of the wheel and pedals, the rig has sufficient mounting holes and slots to make it compatible with Thrustmaster, Logitech, Fanatec and Moza. We installed the Logitech G923 for our tests. Super easy, with no issues at all and the settings on offer will appease most gamer’s needs.
My only gripe is the angle of the seat relative to the ground. The frame base, where you affix your seat, is in a perfect horizontal position, and only by adding pillows or L-shaped racing seat brackets is it going to provide racers with the option to tilt the base according to their liking. I have a very specific seat angle requirement (38 degrees) and don’t want the base to be flat.
Yes, a seat base tilt does make a difference; allow me to explain:
By setting the base angle at anything between 25 and 45 degrees (dependant on your body size and shape), it will help position the base of your spine against the back of the upright section of the seat, providing much-needed back support. Once I found my ideal setting at 38 degrees, I was more relaxed in the seat. With proper back support, long races of an hour or more won’t leave you in pain for days afterwards.
As a matter of interest, the seat that Jootech sell does have a back tilt, so that’s cool, and the angle that I set the back at is 52 degrees; I just wish I could set the base seat setting too.
Apart from comfort, the base and backrest settings make it better on my ability to apply the brake and throttle whilst using major leg muscles and not my calf, or worse still, relying on my ankle, because that will lead to injuring my shin for sure, but also my ability to negotiate corner and exist speeds correctly. The best piece of advice I can give you is to play with your pedal angle and position the seat base, and pedal height and angle, to a point where you are using your upper leg when depressing the pedals. Trust Uncle Len.
During my time with the Jootech GT Rig, I found that changing the wheel angle, pedals, monitor height and distance from the driver was easy enough for one person to manage during the installation process.
It’s important to note that changing the distance of the pedals, relative to the steering wheel is limited to the positioning of your screws that affix the wheel and pedals to the respective base. This is because the wheel baseplate is connected by an upright arm to the pedal baseplate.
When it comes to the overall fit of this rig, I felt quite comfortable. I am 1,84cm tall, and, in my opinion, a VERY slender humanoid at 90kg… cough… okay, okay…. at 96kg, and the distance between my upper body, the wheel and pedals was perfect, meaning I don’t see any problems for most people unless you have crazy long legs or arms. Also, as a matter of interest, I watched the leaner NAG staff get in and out of the simulator like it was a foofy slide entrance. Go team fit!
The Jootech GT Rig caters to racers who prefer the pedal to be inverted, and it shows that a lot of thought went into the overall design and build of this affordable rig.
Overall, the settings that help personalise the Jootech GT Rig are what stand out most about this sim rig, and it will appease the needs of most humans who enjoy sim racing.
Moreover, there is a perfect space under the seat where I could install a butt kicker subwoofer and, on the sides of the frame, mount a 3.1 speaker array.
Although there was no manual included in the box, it was easy enough to construct but I did find an assembly guide after completing the job on the Jootech website… RTFM Len! I used two Allen key sizes, a 13 and 17 spanner, a star screwdriver and a small hammer. From there, its two hours of smiling to finish and then marvel at the rig. I would suggest that anyone who purchases a rig to construct it themselves because it is in the build process that you find ways to customise the rig to suit you. It is, after all, the place that you will be spending hours in to prove to your mates that you are the guy who can successfully hook a Beemer around a 90-degree left-hander at 120km/h, kick two gears down, hang the arse out, lighting up the rears, camera in hand and out the window, shooting the vid to Insta. Smile, rockstar, smile.
The bottom line is that JooTech offers everything you would need from a base rig without costing an arm and a leg. There’s zero wobble or steering sway, as is normally the case with cheaper rigs.
This seat has seriously impressed us here at NAG. So much so that we told Jootech we wanted to give one away, so, to that effect, we’ll soon be giving away a Jootech GT Rig to one lucky NAG reader. Keep an eye on the NAG channels for more news on this competition in the coming months.
In the meantime, check out my first impressions of the Jootech GT Rig on YouTube.