Oem Drive by Wire Sim Racing Throttle

This instructable is for using a real gas pedal from a volkswagen, audi or lamborghini after the model year 2005 with a racing sim. my original logitech pedals needed new potentiometers so instead i switched them to hydraulic for the brake and clutch. I didnt like the feel of a hydraulic throttle, so i came up with this simple and cheap solution. this is also a good solution if you have a pedal set that only came with 2 pedals to add a 3rd.

-throttle pedal with part number 1K1721503. They can be found in any junkyard in any vw owned cars (vw, audi, lamborghini and bentley if in the us) you ideally want the plug and some length of wires from the plug for the pedal as well to make wiring easier. these can also be found on ebay rather cheap. just look for one that has the wiring included.

-ebay link for the pedal search by part number.

-3d printed mount that i designed found here on my makerworld profile if you print, or here if you dont.

-arduino pro micro

assorted hardware. i used some m6 bolts nuts and washers as its what i had laying around.

dremel or other cutting tool to trim the pedal

assorted tools for wiring and mounting.

the pedal has some protrusions that need removed on the bottom face. they are circled in red in the first 2 pictures and no longer there on the last 2. a dremel tool with a cut off wheel takes 30 seconds to go through, but a hacksaw or other cutting implement will work just fine. leave the protrusion towards the top as the mount has a spot for it and is the mounting location of pedal to mount.

mount the pedal to the mount and your base. this is self explanatory. put the mount on your pedal base and drill some holes where you'd like them. the pedal pops right in the mount, use your bolt, washer and nut to mount them together. then bolt the mount to your base. i only have 1 bolt on either side and its plenty sturdy with all of my abuse, but you have plenty of options for mounting tabs.

so first we will start with the arduino wiring. its very simple. each pedal needs 4.5v of power from vcc, ground from any ground pin, and signal wire. For the pedal values we use analog inputs. as shown in the picture, we have A0 as throttle, A1 as brake, and A2 as clutch. it really doesn't matter as you'll need to map them in your game anyway. for these i just choose colors other than red or black. youll want to just run your vcc from the arduino, and split it to however many pedals you're running. same for the ground. if you're just running the throttle this way, you only need one, if running all 3, you need 3 of each.

the wiring for the throttle pedal is as follows:

pin 1 and pin 2 are 5v (connect both to power from arduino)

pins 3 and 5 are ground (connect both to ground from arduino)

pin 4 is output 1 (connect to signal from arduino)

pin 6 is output 2 (do not connect to anything)

for the throttle you do need both powers and both grounds connected. i just connect both powers to the same power wire from the arduino, same with the ground. the pins are marked with corresponding number on the oem plug.

for the other pedals they are usually red for power, black for ground, and then a random color for the signal wire that is not red or black.

alternatively, if youd just like to wire it in to your existing pedal wiring, factory pedal wiring is also just 3 wires, power, ground and signal. the power will be red, the ground will be black, and the signal will be a random color. just remember that the throttle pedal itself needs both powers, and both grounds connected, or it will not work. so both wire 1 and wire 2 from the pedal would go to the red wire on your pedal wiring, 3 and 5 to your black wire for ground, and number 4 to your signal wire.

upload your arduino coding to your arduino. code is attached. from there you are ready to map them in whatever game you're playing. your pc should label as "pedals."