BMW 1 series as Beam.NG controller

Hello guys,
me and a few mates have been working in converting a damaged BMW 1 series to be used as a controller in Beam.NG (and many other games but we mainly focus on Beam.NG).
As some of you may know I have some posts on the forums about some CAN-bus related stuff, the BMW E46 and E90 gauges connected to Beam.NG.

Now we have taken it up a notch and chopped up a vehicle and kept the original cable looms but took out some things like the motor management as there is no engine anymore. using Beam.NG we could create some inputs the car needs to operate. basically Beam.NG replaced the engine of our BMW 1 series. the car still thinks it is complete and everything (except heater/ac) works. radio, windows, gauges just to name a few. here is our demo video:


If you guys want to see more pictures of the built please ask! we made lots of pictures of the process!
If you have any questions please ask!

Gauges in the video did not work because windows couln't handle 4 serial usb ports to write controller data to the computer. we have to combine a few things in order to make the CAN-bus work again but believe me it works fine see the projects below!
Previous projects:
https://www.beamng.com/threads/bmw-e90-cluster-working-on-beamng.59622/
https://www.beamng.com/threads/beamng-arduino-dashboard-connector.53969/

 

You've already heard about them doing surgery on a grape...

Spoiler

Spoiler: ...now get ready for

"BRAIN IN A VAT" ON A CAR

 

Nice to hear, cutting it in pieces is surprisingly easy!
Now we are going to make it better and get the little things working, like indicator switch and buttons etc

 

WOW!!!! I wish you added something like a fan that turns on while you're driving to represent the wind that blows when you're driving (if the windows are open or it's a convertible)

 

We where thinking to add blowers in the climate blower holes as there is no AC unit anymore to get some sort of working ac

 

We maybe just recreate the blowers from the AC using the AC controls or something tomorrow I will add some pictures of the building process

 

Does the sound of the game come from the cabin? İf not, do you guys think of adding speakers into the cabin just to simulate the game noise?

 

We have the original AUX connextion in the car so gamesound can come from the speakers, just for demonstration we used the radio.

 

Very interesting! :-]

 

Awesome ! I thought about something like that but with an E23 dashboard and seat, as it's my favorite vintage Bmw. But i don't have the technical knowledge to do that

 

Luckily we have the required knowledge about CAN-bus, Arduino and coding. Basically every little project we did before and are linked in the OP have been combined in one big project

 

I should try this one day, have access to an oscilloscope fast enough for CAN decoding to sniff out the original vehicle messages

 

Consider yourself lucky you get to take apart BMW’s, over here all of our junkyards are full with early-00s mush-mobiles and the occasional Jeep Liberty. Also, can’t forget the obligatory wrecked Ford Fusion!

 

We happen to have most of the CAN-bus related info from BMWs from 1998-2010. So thats why we use BMW. Lots of info to find on the internet.

 

Bump
What are the dimensions? I currently have a 23”by 54”sim rig and it seems cool.

 

the original plan was to make it fit between a regular door, but that would sacrifice too much from the interior so we made it slighty bigger, 1.20ish meters wide and simular lenght if I recall properly, will check the documentation we made

 

super cool, wish i could do something like this when my friends dad's infinti g35 got crushed by a tree.
do you hook this up to a computer or is the computer in the car? sorry if this has been stated i didnt see it