Moza R3 Racing Bundle Review – Meet Your New Favorite, Wallet-Friendly Racing Sim Controller

Moza Racing has been rightly praised in recent times for bringing high quality racing simulation equipment to the general public at a price that makes some of the more pretentious opposition laugh and has also just announced its entry into the racing market. flight simulations.

With a range of quality gear already available for PC, the recently announced R3 Racing Pack remains PC compatible, but marks the company’s first launch into the console market with full Xbox compatibility built-in.

If you want to use it for racing on your PC, that’s great too, and it proves to be a very reasonably priced option if you’re new to sim racing, or just want to upgrade Level up that tired old belt. -a driven wheel that you’ve had under your desk for the better part of a decade.

So let’s go ahead and see what Moza Racing pulled off here, if it worked, and if we remain as excited as when we first heard about it.

What’s in the R3 box?

The great thing here is that you get everything you need for running in one large box. Wheel, wheelbase, pedals and, luckily, a desk clamp.

The clamp is important because chances are it’s your starter wheel, which is why you’re on the lower end of the price scale for this sort of thing, so again, chances are you don’t necessarily have a sim pit (yet!) or a wheel rack to attach all your new toys to.

I’ve seen desk clamps before, even on joysticks that have a ton of movement, which is annoying, but the piece of shaped steel you get here is rock solid. Indeed, the only thing you need to worry about is what’s actually on your desktop. I have (had!) a plant balanced precariously atop my speakers, which in turn sat on a 3D printed speaker stand. In the middle of a lap of Assetto Corsa, the plant vibrated out of the speaker and made a big old mess!

Anyway, the point is that the clamp is excellent and attaches easily to the wheelbase with four screws and the included tools.

If you’ve ever ridden any type of serious Direct Drive wheel, you’ll be amazed at what Moza has managed to fit into the R3’s small size. The case features a molded X as a nod to its Xbox uses, but you can hold it comfortably in one hand.

This is partly due to clever design, but also because the R3 is the “weakest” in the range when it comes to the force applied by the steering wheel while driving. Even for a non-electrical engineer like me, this is too basic an explanation, so let’s dig deeper.

Science Lesson 101

Wheel force is measured in Nm (Newton-Meter) – One Nm is the unit of torque when a force is applied one meter from a pivot point at right angles to the radial direction. Apologies, forgot you read that.

Basically we can simplify it by just saying it’s the effect you feel through the wheel. Here’s a quick look at the Nm measurements for some of Moza’s other bases

• R3: 3.9 Nm
• R5: 5.5 Nm
• R9: 9 Nm
• R12: 12 Nm
• R21: 21Nm

So, as we can see, the R3 has the lowest Nm rating of the lot here, but trust me, when you’re struggling to get your car into a corner, you won’t want to, and spin the wheel will try mightily to tear you off. itself beyond your reach. So if that’s the case, wouldn’t a 21NM wheel tear your arm off?

Not quite, an increase in Nm actually lets you feel more granular details on the road, like oh, science, science, science. All you really want to know at this point is that the steering wheel feels great in your hand and the force feedback it gives off is incredible.

Lesson finished. I think everything is correct.

Put it all together

As mentioned, you also get the pedals here and these plug into the rear of the wheelbase. Moza hasn’t skimped on the connections here, there are ports on the base for a handbrake, electronic instrument panel and gear lever if you choose to add to your toolbox by upgrading at later level.

The pedals and pedal base are all steel and are a heavy old unit. It comes with a throttle and brake and you can choose to add a clutch as an option. We added one and it’s simple: just unbolt the brake, move it to the middle of the base, then attach the clutch pedal and connect it with the wire into the brake port. This lasted about three minutes.

The pedals use Hall effect sensors to determine where they are at any time, which is fine with the accelerator you’ll no doubt be flooring, but granular brake control is missing here. Again, you can spend a small amount of money on a Precision Brake upgrade, which is essentially a monster spring that massively increases the resistance of the brake, making it much more realistic.

The best thing about both of these upgrades is that they’re affordable, but you don’t need them if you’re just looking to have fun with this stuff for the first time.

This brings us to the wheel itself. The R3 wheelbase is interchangeable with Moza’s other wheels, including some F1 butterfly versions and others, and the one you get here is an Xbox-modified version of Moza’s E3 wheel and the rim here weighs 280mm, which seems a little small in some respects but, in reality, I’m picky.

The buttons are consoled. Instead of the Start button, we have an Xbox Start button and the usual Xbox controller buttons such as Home, etc. All the buttons have a nice click. I wasn’t a huge fan of the D-Pad, which felt a bit squishy, ​​but if I’m only using it for quick glances left or right or navigating menus, it doesn’t. It’s not really serious.

The wheel features Moza’s Quick Release technology, meaning it can be detached from the base for easy storage by simply pulling up on the metal shroud. It’s really nice to see that the same mechanic from the very expensive setup is also included here.

Software

The R3 bundle is controlled on PC by Moza’s Pit House software which allows you to tweak and refine just about anything and I recommend spending at least a little time adjusting the curves to get something that feels natural to you .

There’s also an iOS and Android app that connects to the steering wheel via Bluetooth and allows many of the same modifications. That’s of course what you’ll need to do if you’re using it for your Xbox beyond what an individual game can allow you to modify. .

Xbox Compatibility

This brings me nicely to how Xbox compatibility works, because it might not be what you expect as well. The security chip that makes it recognizable by an Xbox is actually in the wheel itself, not the base, meaning you can technically attach the wheel to any base that fits it and make this Xbox compatible. Good. There are a few caveats, you need a wheelbase that has a connection for pedals because you can’t plug any pedals directly into your console, but this opens up an additional upgrade path down the line.

As the wheel is only available as part of the R3 bundle, you can’t just buy one to connect to, say, an existing R12 you may be using on your PC. Maybe it will be available separately later.

Conclusion of the R3 bundle

So is it worth it? If you’re upgrading from a) a controller or b) something like an entry-level Logitech wheel, this will blow your mind. The fact that it’s only 3.9Nm doesn’t matter, the details you’ll feel will make you smile from the second you start using it.

And it’s nearly silent to use, too, aside from the clicky shift paddles. Anyone who has been in the next room to someone playing with one of the Logitech G steering wheels will be fully aware of the absolute racket they make. The Direct Drive here is almost silent and that’s not an exaggeration.

So if you want to play a racing game like Forza on your Xbox with a steering wheel, it’s a no-brainer. It’s a little harder for PC as there are a lot of great options, many of which come from Moza itself, but as an entry level into the Direct Drive ecosystem, especially if you don’t have a money to spend, you can’t go wrong.

The R3 is a great first wheel and, in many cases, a fantastic second wheel. If there is something casual about your racing sim, you should consider detecting it. If you walk past a mirror and think you could take on Verstappen at his own game, then you might just be happy to spend a little more money, but that’s pointless for most people.

Basically, if you’re looking to get into racing with a steering wheel and want to try it out before dropping thousands, it’s hard not to recommend the R3 package.

How much does the R3 cost?

The R3 Racing Wheel and Pedals Bundle for Xbox and PC is available now from Moza Racing and online stores for £399.