TK Racing Falcon Rig and Varano Seat assembly, quality, first impressions

TL:DR: seat is nice. Rig design could be better but it's inexpensive and the fabrication quality is good. If you buy this, have a plan to fix the seat height because they really screwed up the wheel mount height and it's not adjustable.

1) Packaging: packaging was good. Fasteners are bagged in groups according to assembly step. Everything was in good shape

2) Build quality: overall really nice. Black wrinkle powder coated tubing, gloss powder coated orange brackets, powder coated seat adjuster, and painted bolts. Cleanish welds.

Bad experience: one of the tubes had a ton of black dust (carbon?) inside that came out when I unwrapped it, see in photo. Not sure if from welding or cutting or what but it's really unacceptable to not clean this out before packing.

3) Assembly: this was very straight forward for the most part. Instructions are good and fasteners are bagged according to the step which makes it easy.

Good thing: step A was already completed which was attaching the orange wheel support bracket. Not sure if this was a fluke or all of them come pre-assembled. It came with the fastener bag for step A anyways.

Bad thing: there is a bag with spacers (photo) that isn't listed in the instructions anywhere and doesn't have a label. These spacers are required if you use the TK seat on the TK rig, they go on top of the seat sliders between the sliders and the seat. If you don't do this, the seat adjuster can't be pulled upwards bc it is already touching the seat.

Bad thing: I haven't put together a seat, sliders, and brackets before. In this case, I put together the whole rig and the whole seat (as per their instructions) which left me with attaching the fully assembled seat to the sliders that are on the frame. This is a major pain in the ass and it is tight quarters. I recommend installing the sliders on the seat which is what I ended up doing.

Bad thing: the seat adjuster didn't really fit well on the sliders because it was bent too far inwards to grab the posts on the slider rails. I fixed this with a hammer and hammered each side of the handle onto the slider posts.

4) Design: overall design is pretty nice. The pedal board had plenty of bolt patterns and slots but somehow I couldn't find a great option for my Fanatec CSR Elite pedals.

Good thing: this rig comes with bottom mount sliders which works well with the TK seat (when you use the spacers) and it also comes with side mount brackets. These are usually sold separately but they're included with the rig. These aren't pictured on the exterior of the box.

Good thing: this rig comes with an extra seat adjustment handle for seats that need to be mounted with the slider rails further apart (perhaps using the side mount brackets?)

Bad thing: there are no feet or pads of any sort, just metal on the floor. I immediately bought 42mm ID pipe insulation to prevent the rig from scratching anything.

Bad thing: the wheel mount is LOL tall. Like really too high. I honestly couldn't believe it when I put it together, it's pretty much at face height. You can tilt the wheel down but then you've got a tilted wheel. There's no adjustability in the wheel mount height. Also, this was with the bottom mount brackets. I can't imagine how bad it would be with the side mount seat brackets which basically put the seat on the floor.

It is almost literally like the raised part of the rig where the pedals go was meant for the seat, and the lower part of the rig frame where the seat sits was meant for the pedals and wheel mount.

I can't believe they released this product like this. Maybe they didn't have enough money to put one together and sit in it before shipping them to retailers.

Good thing: it's easy to add height to the seat. I cut a 2x4 into 16 inch segments and stacked 3 on each side. The rig is pretty comfortable now. But seriously it is hilariously bad at the original height due to the height of the wheel mount.

I also considered buying one of the seat rail assemblies that has levers to pump the seat brackets up and down, they're about $150 online. I may end up doing this because I really don't like that my nice powder coated steel rig has lumber on it now.

Bad thing: no shifter mount. I'm cool with it because I almost exclusively use paddles and my Playseat Challenge didn't have an H shifter either. I bought a square tube "L" shaped shifter mount that has adjustable height. They're meant for other rigs but I'll mount it to the 2x4 risers which will be easy.

5) First impressions: it works really well for a cheap rig. Pedal mount is nice and stiff, I can stand on the brakes with not much flex. Wheel mount could be stiffer but the tubes are beefy (42mm). The seat recline adjuster could use more slots, my happy spot is between 2 settings.

I used the rig with my Fanatec CSR wheel and there were no bolt holes on the wheel mount that fit it. My Playseat Challenge does have holes that fit it. Luckily, the wheel mount is barely wide enough to fit the CSR table clamp and it clamped fine.

I just got my Simagic Alpha and it has a hole pattern for this base. It's slotted and you get about 1 inch fore/aft adjustment. I think you could also flip around the wheel mount and have more options but I like where it is.

Overall for a $180 rig and $130 seat it's a really good option and I have no regrets, just embarrassment for the TK Racing employees who decided on the wheel mount height. This should've been obvious in any kind of CAD model or a prototype.