The sim racing hardware market is fiercely competitive, and while high-end gear often dominates the conversation and seems to be all that anyone talks about, most people don’t want to drop $500 on a set of sim racing pedals. At just $137, the SimJack UT pedals are positioned to challenge the dominance of established mid-range options like the Thrustmaster TLCMs with the aim to compete with the design and performance of pedals like the Heusinkveld Sprints, a set of pedals that these bear an uncanny resemblance to. Now, we just so happen to have a set of Sprints that we can test these pedals directly against. So, can the Simjack UTs truly deliver performance that rivals a set of pedals nearly four times their price?
First Impressions & Build Quality
The SimJack UTs make an immediate positive impression. The construction is all metal leaving us with the feeling they were well-built. They are by far the best built set of pedals in terms of materials we’ve ever used at this price point.
A major highlight is the incredible amount of adjustability. Mounting the pedals was easy, and getting the pedal faces in the right position and at the perfect angle for our test rig exceptionally simple.
Throttle Pedal: Great Feel, Minor Compromise
The throttle pedal is a pleasant surprise. It offers a nicely weighted feel right out of the box, along with a good amount of travel. While the overall feel is fantastic, the travel mechanism itself isn’t the smoothest. It lacks the “buttery smooth” feel that the Sprints offer. One thing that prospective buyers should be aware of, there is no included spring to make these pedals lighter, your only option to reduce or increase resistance in the throttle pedal is the preload adjustment.
Brake Pedal: Tons of Potential, One Major Challenge
The brake pedal is where the SimJack UTs truly shine with potential, yet also present their biggest challenge. It is robustly built and offers tons of adjustability. Its 200kg load cell means everyone should be able to find a setup that suits them and their needs.
The biggest issue, is overly stiff elastomers. The range of included elastomers don’t offer a wide enough range of soft options, while giving the user plenty of stiff elastomers.
In the real world, this meant when we were testing them on our budget sim rig, the brake pedal caused excessive flex in the rig’s pedal plate, even on the softest setting with all of the preload taken out of the brake. This meant that we were forced to limit the max brake pressure in the software to compensate for the stiffness. This, unfortunately, limited brake travel significantly, something that many will be fine with, but strays away from our preferences, as we constantly found we would drop the last 15-20% of brake pressure far faster than intended without the tactile feedback that a longer pedal travel would give.
Due to this limitation, we would struggle to recommend them for those on a wheel stand or a desk unless modification to the pedals, or a major rig upgrade is planned. Although we haven’t completed testing yet, the switch to the elastomers Heusinkveld has made for a major improvement in pedal feel and travel.
Optional Damper Tested
We also tested the optional damper, but we found it created a little bit of inconsistency in the initial brake application. While this might be us simply not being used to the feeling of a gas damper, in our opinion, you would be better off saving your money and going without; we ended up removing it from our set.
Performance: The Ultimate Test
But, feeling, build quality and design means nothing if you can’t be fast. So can these pedals keep up?
The answer is a resounding yes.
After about a week of acclimatization, we put the SimJack UTs through the paces against our reference Heusinkveld Sprints on a 20-lap stint in iRacing. The performance parity is incredible for the price difference.
The fastest recorded lap time difference was a mere (just over seven-hundredths of a second).
Overall, across the 20-lap stint, the average difference between them was just over a tenth of a second. This performance, shown in the lap-by-lap comparison below, fully validates the SimJack UTs as a serious piece of performance hardware.
Conclusion: An Absolute Bargain
Overall, these pedals are fantastic for the money. The throttle is great, and offers plenty of resistance and travel, whereas the brake pedal offers immense adjustability, only limited by the included elastomer set. The good news is this is easily rectified with third-party sets, although we did not include the results of testing with those elastomers in this review.
We think the SimJack UT pedals are an absolute bargain at $137, and should be high up on any budget PC sim racer’s shopping list, provided you have a rig stiff enough to handle the brake force or you intend to modify the elastomers.
If you are interested in picking up the Simjack UT pedals, you can get them here using our Amazon Affiliate link.