Hi everyone,
Tomorrow I will be playing with a wheel for the very first time. I have a Moza R5 Bundle on the way and will be playing FM23.
I play FM already and I do ok, I think my skill ratings hovers around 4,650 and my safety rating is S.
For those of you using wheels now, how long did it take you to get as quick as a controller (if you manger to)?
Any hints of tips to get up to speed?
I haven’t compared my laptimes since switching a couple years ago, but I feel like it took me many months - 6+ - to feel comfortable with using a wheel.
Once the “this is new and I’m not sure” feeling wears off, then you can relax a bit and start really pushing on cars.
I found that keeping ABS active until you don’t have to “think” about braking helps ease into a wheel setup. And then once you have that comfort of use, disable ABS to improve your times.
It will also take some time to dial in the FBB settings on the wheel. Same for braking force.
I found that running rivals was extremely helpful early in my switch. Following good lines always helps improve times. But getting to do that without fear of losing your rating or ruining other players races because you made an honest mistake with the new controls helps.
With my g923 I was slower at first I mean by a lot… defaulted the wheel settings as I spent countless hours tuning it per you tube come back the next day and it’s undrivable again. After I defaulted I only changed a few things. And it feels almost perfect for every car. Before the previous setup felt great on say the rsr Porsche but then say I race dad w stock tune muscle cars and it’s all over the place and undrivable.
I’m driving with no assist any car most of the time manual w clutch. I’ll never go back to hand control. 
hope this helps
Depends if you want immersion or speed.
I use the g923, paddle shift, with very weak FFB and in the car tuning menu settings I set the steering lock to about 70%. I’m not the fastest but do ok in rivals for a wheel user.
It does take a while to get used to as in weeks/months. You’ll probably find you’ll understeer everything everywhere.
Invest in a sturdy wheel and pedal mount too. Doesn’t have to be anything flashy as long as the pedals don’t slide and wheel is rock solid.
I’d forget speed for now and just have fun with it.
Nice replies, thank you. Looks like I’ve got some driving to do!
One thing you might struggle with at first is the rear end stepping out under braking, I know I did, Switching to a wheel will probably require a change in driving style. More care is needed setting up a corner and keeping the car settled under braking.
Have the mindset of braking earlier and in as straight a line as possible with less braking force.
The big advantage with a wheel if you have a load cell brake pedal is how much more precision you have with brake modulation. You might be tempted to run a high braking force in the load cell just because you can and have to stomp hard on the brakes. But I prefer a low braking force for more precision, (15 out of 100 on Logitech) Also less fatigue during longer stints.
I’ve got a Trustmaster T248 about ten days ago, after 1 year of playing by pad. It’s like learning from scratch for me, with much more satisfaction.
The wheel requires much more attention in many circumstances, including taking curbs. I’m playing with any sigle assist, since I want to understand and control the different reactions of the car. The breaking without ABS seems the most complicated part. Sometimes it’s frustrating, specially with powerful cars.
However there are some corners that are easier with a wheel, compared to a pad. This happens for fast corners , where you have to drive very precise lines.
For sure I’m much slow than before. I was 4900 and after few races 4600, in rapid decrease. Who cares about the ranking? Possibly I will improve and go up again.
I know I keep having to tweak the wheel settings the more and more I play. It’s really hard to get the oscilation out of the base wheel settings. I almost sent my wheel back because it was ridiculous. Logitech is no help either. They should have some base line settngs for different driver types. But they have NOTHING. Nice support there.
Give us a shout we’ll cruise with ya and get ya up to speed. That case if you have any questions or concerns whoever your cruising with can answer ya on the spot. I had to figure everything out by my self and retune all my cars from hand control to the wheel. 
and yes sir get that seat time in. I’m still learning as I go, only know what dad taught me and just been running wild w it since then. welcome to the wheel users club, once you get the hang of it you might not ever go back.
So got it all set up and dialled in using settings I found online… It definitely needs some work I reckon.
Just won my first race at Road America. Against AI evel 4.
I need to run TC at the moment or I am a mess
What does everyone do when moving from car class to car class?
On the wheel they feel very different which is fantastic but do you adjust your settings at all?
When moving from pad to wheel you will be slower initially as you build familiarity.
I used DiRT Rally 2.0 to “learn wheel”, and it took me about 3 weeks of daily driving to beat my pad times. Eventually I was able to set world records (still sneak the odd one in in WRC, and have a few strong times in Forza too) and have a more engaging experience than on pad.
One thing I recommend you do at the end of every driving session is to run some hotlaps on a car/track combo you know you’re good at, preferably one you have a fast pad time on. Try and beat your pad time, and then once you do, try to consistently beat it.
I’ll second this. It was the original Dirt for me. It really helps with learning car control when you’re supposed to drive sideways.
I change no settings at all on my wheel go from stock worst handling car to idk a open wheeled no issues
Love this idea at the end of my session, thanks.
I put maybe 3hrs into driving yesterday and loved it.
I am finding Touring and GT3 to be the best experience so far. I cannot drive the 2024 Mustang in the newly added career events though to save my life!
Thanks. For me the best change from a controller to the wheel so far is how unique each car now feels.
I’ll keep things with the wheel consistent and keep practicing
Tell me you’re using a belt driven wheel. Wasn’t Direct Drive supposed to put an end to this?
Moving to a wheel is hard but in the end great, took me a while to beat my controller times but then I was faster, especially with super quick cars (R/P/X class). You need a lot of tinkering, researching other people’s setups then trial and error.
The only “issue” is that it’s much harder to recover from bumps and hits as opposed to a controller, but the immersion is obviously on another level.
Hoping to get back to using a wheel someday… Maybe a Moza as well.
This is important. I can’t describe how distracting and unnerving it is trying to steer and push pedals and they move around. I previously had a wooden computer desk for like $50 at Walmart and used a cinder block to stop the pedals from sliding around. It was crude but effective. Now I have a purpose-built wheel stand but it was $70 so not a massive rig. The pedals are bolted in place so thats good but vigorous steering makes the stand sway. I stiffened it by running a couple dowel rods between the top and base so it barely wobbles now.
I don’t have the option of a stand but definitely making the most of it.
I have an IKEA desk made from their thick work surface bolted to two Alex drawers.
For the pedals,.they are mounted to two pieces of wood which in turn is fixed to a large MDF board. On the underside of the board I stapled non slip rubbing mesh.
Works great with my R5 even with the brake mod.
For my chair I use my desk wheelie chair with a couple of rubber stoppers
I’m rocking a $10 foldable Walmart portable table w brackets screwed into my tv stand. Tacky I know but I have a small bed room so I improvised. And to the guy about pedals sliding on the floor that’s the worst on hard wood floors. Lucky I can push it up against my tv stand and that fixed that issue.
