The iRacing Simulator is up and running! 

We built this simulator to give the ABJ Team some seat time at Stafford Springs before the 24hr of LeMONS edurance race.  The team at Aprotocall pushed to us a Mac Mini as a platform and the result was awesome.  The compact size as well as built in bluetooth and wifi makes the system a great choice for its portablity.  The latest gen Minis run an nvidia graphics car that can handle the program requirements.   To give our system all the help it could get (and to get the most for our buck) we bought the base model Mac Mini and did our own upgrades.  Discllaimer: The following voids the crap out of your warrenty if you mannage to break stuff.  You'll be the proud owner of a shiny/hip paperweight.  This said our Hack Mini outperforms the ones you can buy at Apple and for hundreds of dollars less.  We brought our machine to the dealership yesterday to help make up for being stuck working on Memorial Day.  Our sim ran a respectable 52 frame rate and everyone was impressed.  Oddly, as soon as Nuno got behind the while the Simulator's check engine light started flashing...

Our Mini came with single gig of ram.  You can drop the dime for 2 at an Apple store or special order your box from Apple's website with up to 4gigs.  The price climbs quickly kiddies...  We chose Crucial Ram because it's dead reliable and the Company and support is top notch.  $60 some bux got us 4gigs (the most you can stuff in this little machine).  

The hard drive that came with our Mini was a 120gig.  Apple offers a 320gig/5400rpm option for $175.  We found a 500gig SATA notebook drive that ran at 7200rpm for $135 shipped.  If you want to go really crazy you can replace the optical drive with a second HD to push your Hack Mini into the Terabyte range.

How to upgrade RAM and Hard drives in your Mini:

You'll need:
A putty knife
Small philips (pref magnetic)
New Ram
New Hard Drive

You'll want:
Something to ground static electricity
A soft neat working surface
Plastic pry tool (a plastic knife would do)

The putty knife is is used to seporate the guts of the Mini from it's aluminium case lit.  To do this put the mini on it's back and insert the knife alone one side.  Carefully pry the outward this will alow the base of the mini to unclip from the lid.  Slowly work all the way around the mini until the case is completely free.

Remember to discharge static electricity before touching things.  If you don't know how to do this, or can't figure it out, maybe you shouldn't be doing this...

Set the lid aside and for reference place the mini with the connection ports facing away from you.  Remove the 3 antennas from their fasteners.  The antenna to the back right has two retention clips that must be squeezed.  The antennas on the left are held in only by pressure, CAREFULLY remove them from their posts and set the springs located underneath aside. 

Next remove the Screws at the four corners of the case.  These hold the drives to the motherboard.  Set them aside and notice that one is larger than the others.  Disconnect the data cable from from the back left of the drive assembly with your plastic pry tool.  Disconnect any tape that holds your antenna wires to the drive assembly.  Slowly lift the assembly away from the base.  It may require you to move it around gently to come clear. 

Set the drive assembly on its back.  You can now see the motherboard and ram as well as the hard drive located under the optical drive.
First to remove the old ram pull apart the clips holding the old ram down and lift the top edge of the ram till it swings up to the angle pictured.  Pull the ram out of the connector. Install is the opposite of removal.  Insert ram at the angle shown until seated then push down into the clips.

Unfasten the "old" hard drive by removing it's 4 screws.  Remove the temp lead from the back edge of the drive.  Slide the drive back and away from it's connector.  Carefully remove the 2 shock pillows from the underside of the drive and place them on the new drive in the same locations.  To install the new drive set the assembly on it's end.  Insert the new drive and slide it down into its connector.  Replace the 4 screws and the temp sensor (there should have plenty of residual adhesive).

The rest of the assembly is the opposite of removal.  Take your time and slowly place it all back together in the right order and with the springs and screws in the right places.  Your Hack Mini is ready for its new OS install.  Congatulations!

The iRacing software is a windows only program so our Mini runs native XP.  Not as slick as OSx but it has been rock solid stable so far.   See you on the virtual track...