Volvo Gaming-Setup
07.02.2022
We stumbled upon Zeno Mario da Silva and his awesome gaming setup on Facebook. Zeno Mario has build a complete car cockpit with genuine parts for playing racing games on a huge screen.
In our interview he answers questions about the realisation of the project and some insights about his personal relation to Volvo cars.
Could you please write something about yourself? (Where are you from? How old are you? etc.)
I am 40 years old, born in Brazil and living in Florida, USA for nearly 10 years. I am a big DIY enthusiast, my wife says I have too many hobbies, I like doing woodwork for cabinets, CNC projects, 3D printing, cars, gaming, electronics, anything tech related I am probably into.
How did you come to the idea of building this great gaming setup?
I am a big fan of Volvos since 1990's ever since my dad showed up with a 1993 Volvo 850 GTL navy blue, now you have to think about the context. It was Brazil in the early 90’s, imported cars were super rare, and when available they were expensive and mostly Mercedes, AUDIs or BMWs. Volvos were completely unknown in Brazil and anyone seeing that car would just know it was an premium car but completely different, so I was the talk of the school when my dad showed up to pick me up. My dad eventually bought a 1996 Volvo S70 that was in fact a one-of-a-king and deserves almost a story for itself, the 1996 year is not a typo, it was one of the early Volvo S70s made to promote the car, it was in that cherry red and was imported to Brazil alongside with 2 other cherry red Volvos a C70 and a V70 then used for launch pictures, drive around Interlagos racing track. It was equipped with a tuned engine, huge caliper brakes and some very odd combinations because it had R elements but it was branded only T5.
This made me fall in love even more and I got my self my first Volvo in 2005. A Volvo 850 T5 in dark gray, this car ultimately saved my life. I had a very nasty accident, I was speeding and lost control, spun and hit a tree at around 100km/h on the driver side.
Needless to say, I am here to tell you this story because of Volvo. So obviously I replaced this 850 with a 1998 S70 T5. When I moved to the United States I had a Volvo hiatus and came back to the brand in 2018 when I bought the new S90 T5 2018, loved the car and in 2020 I traded into a Volvo S60 T5 2020, and in December last year I traded this S60 T5 with a S60 T8 2022. Now I am hunting a Volvo S60 R 2005-2007 to match my gaming setup. This whole story brings me up to the gaming setup. Well I have always been a gaming enthusiast too, and when the pandemic started I took the dive and bought a racing wheel, built myself a wooden structure and bought a BMW 3 series seat. I wanted Volvo, but I remembered I was researching and found out that the power seat adjustments were all through the CEM so it would be a nightmare to make it work, then I found a mint condition 3 series with power adjustments and took the plunge.
I enjoyed this setup a lot and always admired other people who used car dashboards to race, one day YouTube suggested me a video by a guy named Andy Gabler (will post the link below) showing how to connect a P2 cluster to Simhub and play games, I was fascinated and the same day searched my near Pick and Pay junkyard, drove there on the weekend and found a V70 2004 in great condition interior wise. I ended up buying the center console, cluster dashboard, radio, climate control, light switch, etc.
As you can see in the photos, I did cut the passenger side due to space limitations (I would have kept it If I could) and began a rough design on Fusion 360 of the wooden structure, it was quite tricky since it is very irregular, but I managed to build starting from the top down. I used my Volvo S60 2020 as reference for the height of things and the real center console and dashboard to align things.
Once the whole dash was built I followed the tutorial and managed to get the cluster working but no backlight, that took another week of tinkering and I ended up finding a S60 R cluster on ebay that I bought for cheap. I also purchased a cheap 7 speed shifter and a handbrake, mounted them integrated to the center console and 3D printed a trim I designed to match the Volvo one but for the gaming shifter.
Once that was all done, I went again to the junkyard and found a 2009 S60 that had some parts in even better condition, and I like the brushed aluminum so I got the climate, radio and center console from that S60 2009. I made some adaptations and was able to fit that 2009 radio, climate and center console to the 2004 dashboard.
Lastly to get the lights working I plugged 12V straight into the bulbs on the light switch, and decided to do a more elaborate approach with the climate control. I removed the PCB entirely and 3D printed in resin a plain board, where I soldered buttons, LEDs, and a Arduino Leonardo to get it connected as a USB joystick, so I can map the buttons as I want, say I click air conditioning on in the climate control it turns the traction control on the game, AUTO on the climate turns on automatic shifting and so on.
Which vehicles did you use for your gaming setup?
The dashboard is from a 2004 Volvo V70
The cluster is from a Volvo S60 R 2006
The center console, radio, climate control are from a Volvo S60 2009.
The powered seat is a passenger seat from a BMW E36 (due to its ease to connect to power and also I didn’t find a good condition Volvo seat in the junkyard)
Which computer games do you play with it? Which car is your favorite car to game with?
I have been playing several games, my favorite one is Assetto Corsa driving Senna’s Mclaren and a Volvo S60 R mod I downloaded. But I also play a lot of BeamNG in fact other than Assetto Corsa it is my favorite game, I also play a lot Automobilista 2 and when I want to just drive around and relax you can find me in Mexico playing Forza Horizon 5, and 9 out of 10 times in one of my 5 different tuned Volvo 850’s I have in FH5 lol
Do you also drive a Volvo in reality? If so, which one?
Yes, I have been driving the S60 since 2020, I traded my S90 and recently I got a Volvo S60 T8.
How long did it take to build the gaming setup?
The setup started about a month ago, once I get my head into a project I go a little nuts. So I worked a lot over weekends and holiday to get the setup up and running.
Can you write something about the technical details? (computer components, interfaces etc.)
The computer I use to game is a
- Ryzen 5 5900x paired with an
- AMD 6900xt GPU
- It has 32GB of RAM and
- 2x m.2 Samsung EVO 970 plus, 1TB and 2TB
- My TV is a 50” VIZIO 4K with 60hz Vsync and HDR
For the S60 R cluster I am using an
- Arduino UNO attached to a
- canbus shield that connects to Simhub
The climate control is attached to a custom made PCB a Arduino Leonardo.
I have a Fanatec GT DD Pro with the added clutch pedal.
The Shifter is a generic USB 7 speed+ Reverse.
The e-brake is a generic USB one.
Do you currently have any other projects?
I am looking into buying a S60R 6 speed manual and working on it to get it to original condition. I am not a big fan of tuning so I would like to get it to dealer condition. I am also planning to get a “Start and Stop”button to add to the gaming setup to turn on and off all the lights and make another PCB to get the light switch to also work and dim the lights. Of course get the radio to work too, unfortunately it needs the CEM to get the lights on, but I am sure I will figure out something.
Control of the instruments etc.
Gaming Links:
Assetto Corsa:
BeamNG:
Automobilista 2
Forza Horizon 5
