TrakRacer TR40S Review: The Best Value Aluminium Profile Sim Rig?

Ordering & Shipping

Buying the TR40S

Delivery Times and Costs

We placed our order on a Thursday and received a shipping notification to say our order had been dispatched later that same day. The shipment was coming from interstate and arrived the following Monday - a pretty reasonably turnaround time.

We paid just under AU$24 for shipping, which felt like excellent value given the order consisted of the TR40s chassis plus two additional accessory boxes for the seat sliders and brackets.

Packaging

What's Included in the Box?

The TR40s comes with all the following items included;

• Aluminium extrusions
• Universal wheel deck
• Universal pedal plate
• Brackets
• T-Nuts
• Screws
• Washers
• Rubber feet
• End cups
• Clip in cable managers
• Red rubber dust covers for the extrusion pieces
• Stickers
• Allen keys (5mm and 6mm)
• Yellow plastic spirit level

Essentially you have everything you need to build your rig in the base TR40s product, with the exception of a seat and suitable seat rails/brackets to fix it to the rig.

The inclusions are fairly comprehensive, with some extras that aren't clearly advertised and we therefore weren't expecting - such as the stickers, clip in cable managers and the plastic bubble level tool. 

Packaging Quality and Protection

The quality of the packing was excellent, with all the aluminium extrusions individually wrapped in protective sheets and plastic. We didn't encounter any scratched or otherwise damaged pieces or components during assembly.

All the t-nuts, screws, washers and allen keys came neatly packaged in cardboard-backed shrink wrap that were all clearly labelled, meaning locating parts required throughout the build process was quick and easy.

Assembly

Tools Required

The only tools you will need to build your TR40s are the included 5mm and 6mm allen keys to help secure the various sized screws, and Trak Racer also throw in a handy plastic spirit level and straight edge which can be used to make sure everything is sitting flush and level.

This small plastic spirit level was a surprise (but very handy) inclusion

One additional tool we would highly recommend though for your assembly is an adjustable combination square (see image below).

Building the TrakRacer TR40S

General Assembly

Pedal Plate Assembly

Definitely one of the more time-consuming parts of the build, putting the pedal plate together involves quite a number of pieces that all need locking in with screws and nuts. The horizontal 'strips' that make up the main face of the plate have varying holes and angled gaps in them which allow great flexibility in accomodating all different types of pedal sets, but we found we needed to unscrew everything and move some of these plates around to get the mounting holes for our Fanatec CSL Elite v2 pedals lined up correctly.

Universal Wheel Deck

We were very pleased to find that the universal wheel deck was already pre-assembled when it arrived which definitely saves a bit of time on the overall assembly. All that's required is to bolt it onto the cross member using the four screws on each side, and then tighten the adjustment screws underneath.

We'd recommend mounting your wheel onto the plate before attaching the plate to the rig as getting the holes lined up when working underneath can be a bit challenging.

BYO Seat

The TR40s doesn't include a seat in the base price/option, but one of the great things about aluminium profile rigs like this one is you can bolt just about any type of car/racing seat onto it as the seat mounting rails can be adjusted to any width required.

When it comes to selecting a seat you have two options; a reclining seat or a bucket seat. The option that you go for will determine the type of brackets you'll need to purchase (available from Trak Racer, or sometimes come with the seat itself).

We opted for a fixed-back bucket seat since we managed to find an NRG branded one on Amazon cheaper than we could find anything else, including decent second hand bucket seats on used marketplaces. 

Moulded/fixed back bucket seats generally have more rigidity than reclinable seats, but obviously offer less flexibility (since they can't be reclined). One complaint you'll often hear about reclinable seats, especially the more affordable ones designed for sim rigs is the flex in them, especially under hard braking, and personally we prefer the more racecar-esque look and appeal of a fixed back bucket seat.

The type of seat you go for will also determine the type of mounting brackets required to attach the seat to the rig. Fixed back bucket seats like ours have mounting holes on the side of the seat, whereas reclinable seats are mounted from mounting points underneath.

Assembly Tips & Tricks

We're not going to do a blow-by-blow tutorial on how to assemble the TR40s, but there are a few key points to takeaway from our experience with putting ours together.

Allow plenty of time

It's worthwhile taking your time and checking (and double-checking) each step as you go. All in (including fitting the seat which had some challenges - not related to the Trak Racer rig), we estimate it took approximately 4-5 hours to build it.

Check and Double Check

As mentioned above, it's worth while checking and double checking each step as you go. It's not dissimilar to putting together flat-pack furniture, where if you realise you've made a mistake or gotten something wrong, it can be time consuming (and frustrating) to pull everything apart to correct it.

Set it Square

Pretty much all joins need to be at a 90° angle, and making sure you do this consistently throughout the build helps to ensure everything lines up at the end. Similarly, check your spacing on each side to make sure everything is symmetrical - using an adjustable combination square as recommended previously) really helps with this.

Follow the Instructions

The included instructions from Trak Racer are pretty decent and did a good job in guiding us through the process of putting it all together. There were a couple of steps that were a little ambiguous but ultimately we got it all assembled without too much trouble and without needing to resort to throwing things across the room in frustration.

Assemble First - Tighten Down Later

Since getting everything nice and square is so important to a successful build, we recommend you don't tighten everything up fully until everything is together. This gives you some room for flex/adjustment and to make sure everything is square at the end of the build before locking it in and tightening everything down fully.

Watch some Assembly Videos/Tutorials

We watched a number of YouTube videos on assembling the TR40s as well as some other Trak Racer rigs to see how it's done. Not critical but it can help you to visualise some of the intricacies of assembling one of these - right down to the little things like how the t-nuts work if you haven't dealt with them before.

Build Quality

Aluminium Profile Design

While all profile rigs may look similar at first glance, the dimensions of the individual aluminium extrusions play a major role in determining rigidity, weight and cost.

The TR40S uses 40x40mm aluminium profile for the primary chassis rails, while the wheel and pedal plate uprights utilise larger 80x40mm profile sections. This is a sensible compromise that keeps costs down without sacrificing rigidity where it matters most.

The larger wheel uprights are especially important since they support the wheel deck and absorb the constant forces generated by modern force feedback wheelbases. Even with our Fanatec CSL DD running the 8Nm Boost Kit, we observed virtually no movement or flex from the uprights during race sessions.

You can however instigate some minimal back and forth flexing of the uprights by forcefully pushing or pulling on the wheel, however we wouldn't consider this kind of motion "normal" in a sim rig so wouldn't have any noticeable impact when behind the virtual wheel.

Compared to larger (and more expensive) profile rigs such as the Trak Racer TR80 or TR120, which make more extensive use of larger profile sections, the TR40S feels like a carefully optimised design rather than a budget rig that has been stripped back.

Aluminium Profile Quality

There is however, one exception. One short profile piece has a very slight imperfection on it, from what we suspect was a problem with the cut where perhaps the piece moved a little, which you can hopefully see in the picture below. It's relatively minor, and if we could be bothered we could just flip this piece over to hide it quite easily. 

This is an obvious exception to the rule, so not really a problem in our view, and not indicative of the quality you could expect if you pulled the trigger on a TR40s yourself.

The only other thing we'd point out is one profile piece that had some metal shavings inside from when it was cut. This is something we've seen mentioned by other Trak Racer customers in the past, but we only encountered this on a single piece from our TR40s.

Universal Wheel Deck

The included universal wheel deck is another key component that certainly hits the mark. At 3mm thick, it's rock solid and has absolutely zero flex.

There's plenty of pre-drilled holes to fit all the popular/common wheel bases such as Logitech, Moza, Fanatec, Thrustmaster and Simagic just to name a few. Trak Racer do a great job at outlining hardware compatibility on their website so it's worth checking out to make sure your particular gear will fit on the TR40s, but you will need to source the correct size and length bolts to secure your wheelbase to the wheelplate.

Pedal Plate

Much like the wheel plate, there's plenty of holes and spaces in the pedal plate to accomodate all the most popular sim racing pedals available. As previously mentioned, it's worth checking how your pedals mounting points line up as this will determine what pieces go where when putting together the plate.

Once it's assembled though, much like the wheel plate we've found it to be rock solid with no noticeable flex in it at all, even under the heaviest of braking conditions.

Hardware, Brackets and Finish

Like the aluminium profiles, the finish on all the other hardware pieces like brackets, screws, t-nuts etc was also excellent. Pretty much all visible components had the same black finish helping it all to blend seamlessly together, and all the pre drilled holes in the brackets and profile pieces lined up perfectly during assembly.

Some of the brackets even feature am embossed Trak Racer logo which is a nice touch and adds to the overall premium feel of the components.

Rig Adjustability

Wheel Position Adjustment

When it comes to adjusting the position of your wheel mounted to the included universal wheel deck, you've got a couple of options.

In order to make adjustments you'll typically need to loosen the nut and bolt using an allen key (on the bolt) and a socket or spanner on the nut. 

Forwards/backwards

By loosening the lower two nuts of the wheel deck attachment, you're able to slide the wheel deck forwards or backwards an inch or two which is useful to help fine tune the reaching distance.

If this won't allow sufficient adjustment then the uprights that the wheel base cross member attaches to can also be moved forwards or backwards which is a little more involved but definitely possible.

Tilt Angle

The wheel plate can be angled so the wheel deck is flat, or angled upwards or downwards. What option you prefer will largely be dictated by your seating position. You will need to loosen two screws and fully remove another two in order to adjust the angle using one of the 4 preset holes available for adjustment.

Out of the box our wheel plate was angled slightly downwards as you can see in the first picture below. We adjusted the position to make it flatter which was much more comfortable for us. The difference is subtle but very noticeable when sitting in the rig.

Height

Adjusting the height of the wheel deck is the most arduous to undertake, since it requires the 2 bolts on each side of the cross member that the wheel deck is attached to to be loosened. Once loosened, the entire cross member can be slid up/down, but with the wheel deck and wheel base attached, it can be quite heavy, and if you're not careful can lead to some scratches on the black finish of the supporting upright profile pieces (that the cross member attaches to).

This problem isn't unique to the TR40s though and would be the same for basically every aluminium profile rig available on the market, but it's worth pointing out.

All up we think the wheel adjustability options are rather comprehensive, especially considering this is with the standard universal wheel plate that comes included with the base TR40s kit. Adjusting the height should be done with care, and would be easier without a wheelbase being mounted to reduce the weight on the crossmember that needs to be moved.

Other adjustments to the angle and reach can be easily made with a wheelbase mounted which is great for the fine-tuning in the later stage of dialling in your rig.

Pedal Position Adjustment

The pedal plate offers good adjustability with options for angle - being flat or inclined (as high as the short upright aluminium profile piece on the front of the TR40s), as well as forwards or backwards to make them closer or further away from the seat.

In practice, we found ourselves making only minor adjustments once the initial setup was complete. While accessing some of the mounting hardware after assembly can be a little awkward, the good news is that this isn't something you're likely to be doing regularly. Once dialled in, the pedal plate remained secure and movement-free throughout testing.

Seat Adjustment Options

Your seat adjustment options are largely going to be dictated by how your seat is mounted to the rig. If you bolt your seat directly to the rig then seat adjustments will be a little more tedious as you'll need to back off the bolts and slide the seat and brackets back and forth to make adjustments. Definitely not quick and easy, and a potential way to scuff or scratch the nice black finish on the seat profiles.

What we did for our TR40s was purchase the sliding seat rails from Trak Racer that allow the seat to be easily adjusted forwards or backwards by pulling up a lever under the seat, just like you would see in most road cars (prior to electric/motorised seats). 

Unless you're certain you're going to be the only person using the rig and won't ever need to adjust it for any reason, we'd strongly recommend purchasing the seat sliders with the TR40s.

Performance

Rigidity Under Load

Here's the part that everyone wants to know about. How does the TR40s actually perform under load? In a word, we think it's excellent.

We've found the rigidity of all the main components of the TR40s to be extremely strong, especially  considering how often it's criticised for it's smaller 40mm frame size.

With our load cell brake pedal we've experienced no noticeable flex or movement in the rig, seat or pedal plate even when applying peak braking pressure which we believe is one of the best indicators for overall strength and rigidity of a rig.

If you end up with a TR40s and do notice some flexing or movement in the rig we'd strongly recommend double checking all screws affixed to brackets are done up tight and everything is sitting nice and square.

The wheel plate has also been rock solid and given us no noticeable movement with both the Logitech G920 and Fanatec CSL DD wheel bases attached. A solid foundation for the wheel base is particularly important to ensure that all those fine force-feedback details are transferred through the wheel into your hands and not absorbed by any movement in the rig.

Direct Drive Wheel Compatibility

Comfort During Long Racing Sessions

Overall comfort during long stints behind the wheel is going to be determined by how well you've dialled in your seat, wheel and pedal positioning. It's definitely worthwhile investing some time to get this right, even if it is a little tedious having to unscrew some things in order to make these adjustments.

Once we had our TR40s configured to suit our body shape and size, we don't have any complaints about the ergonomics or comfort of it, because as we've covered above in this article, the rig offers plenty of flexibility to adjust the layout and distances of the wheelbase, seat and pedal plate to suit your own needs.

Expandability & Accessories

Accessories and Upgrade Paths

The benefit of aluminium profile rigs like the TR40s is the huge variety of accessories and upgrade paths available to owners. Since aluminium profiles are standardised, this means you're not locked into the Trak Racer ecosystem so you can purchase brackets, screws and other bolt on modifications from wherever you like (ie. wherever is cheapest).

The possibilities are almost endless but some popular/common examples would be;

• Monitor mount(s)
• Handbrake/shifter (there is already an aluminium extrusion included as part of the TR40s for this purpose)
• Keyboard/mouse tray
• Button box holder
• PC shelf
• Bass shakers/haptics

It's definitely a potential rabbit hole - but this is the beauty of profile rigs like the TR40s. You can get maximum enjoyment and benefit from it straight out of the box and never touch it again, or you could spend the rest of your sim racing days constantly adding on or changing things up. The choice is yours but the TR40s represents a great baseline to start from without feeling like you've wasted money.

Value for Money

How the TR40S Compares to the Competition

When shopping for a sim racing cockpit, there are no shortage of options available. During our research, the rigs we found ourselves most frequently comparing the TR40S against were the Next Level Racing GTRacer 2.0, Next Level Racing F-GT Lite/GT Lite Pro and the Fanatec CSL Cockpit.

TR40S vs Next Level Racing GTRacer 2.0

The GTRacer 2.0 is arguably one of the TR40S's closest competitors from a pricing perspective. Once you factor in the cost of adding a seat to the TR40S, the total investment isn't dramatically different with the GTRacer 2.0 currently retailing for around AU$599.

The biggest distinction between the two comes down to construction. The GTRacer 2.0 uses a tubular steel frame, while the TR40S is built from aluminium profile. Both are capable of supporting modern direct-drive wheelbases, however the aluminium profile construction of the TR40S offers significantly greater flexibility when it comes to setup adjustments and future upgrades as we discussed in the previous section.

For buyers looking for an all-in-one package that includes a seat, the GTRacer 2.0 is certainly worth considering. However, if long-term upgradeability and adjustability are important to you, we'd give the edge to the TR40S.

TR40S vs Next Level Racing F-GT Lite & GT Lite Pro

The Next Level Racing F-GT Lite and GT Lite Pro (both currently retailing for AU$499) are both incredibly popular options thanks to their affordable pricing and foldable design. For sim racers who are short on space or need to pack their cockpit away after each session, they offer an appealing solution.

Next Level Racing GT Lite Pro

The trade-off is that both rigs prioritise portability over rigidity and customisation. While they're perfectly capable of supporting entry-level and mid-range wheelbases, neither offers the same level of stability, adjustability or upgrade potential as a dedicated aluminium profile rig.

Next Level Racing F-GT Lite

This is where the TR40S begins to separate itself. The aluminium profile construction allows almost every aspect of the driving position to be adjusted, from wheel height and angle through to pedal location and seat positioning. It also provides a far more robust platform for future upgrades, whether that's load-cell pedals, a stronger direct-drive wheelbase, or additional accessories such as shifter mounts and monitor stands.

If space is limited and portability is a priority, the GT Lite and GT Lite Pro make a compelling case. However, if you have a dedicated area available for sim racing, the TR40S feels like a substantial step up and a better long-term investment.

TR40S vs Fanatec CSL Cockpit

Fanatec's CSL Cockpit occupies an interesting position in the market. It's attractively priced, looks fantastic, and integrates neatly into the wider Fanatec ecosystem.

The Fanatec CSL Cockpit

Where the TR40S pulls ahead is in flexibility. The open aluminium profile design means virtually every component can be repositioned, upgraded or expanded over time. Whether you're changing wheelbases, upgrading pedals, fitting a different seat or adding accessories such as shifter mounts, monitor stands or keyboard trays, the profile-based design simply offers more options.

That isn't to say the Fanatec CSL Cockpit is a poor choice - far from it. However, for buyers who enjoy tweaking, upgrading and customising their setup over time, we'd lean towards the TR40S.

Is the TR40S Worth the Money?

Absolutely. Although the initial price point of AU$449 can be a little misleading as you still need to factor in the cost of a seat (and potentially sliding rails and mounting brackets), you're definitely in for closer to AU$600 by the time you're ready to race, potentially more depending on what sort of seat you go for.

This is still significantly cheaper than any other extruded aluminium profile rig available on the market at the time that we're writing this, especially when you remember that basically all advertised prices for profile rigs are similar and don't unusually include the seat and associated accessories, so make sure when weighing up options you're comparing apples with apples.

The flexibility, strength and quality that extruded aluminium rigs offer is difficult to beat, and having almost endless possibilities for adjustment, customisation and add-ons in the future at this price point, we'd argue it's the best value rig available today.

Don't be fooled by the 40mm base profile by thinking it's flimsy and weak - it isn't. Sure, if you're after a rig that won't budge a single millimetre no matter which way you forcefully push or pull any component, then perhaps an 8020 (or thicker) profile rig is for you. But if you've got entry to mid range equipment, the TR40s is more than up to the task and will serve you well on your sim racing journey.

Final Verdict