Our Verdict
Pros
- Lovely design
- Good materials used
- A lot of adjustability
- Good bottom mounting options
Cons
- No side mounting
- Would be nice to have alternate handle designs
- No real progression
- Slightly linear input
What is the MOZA HBP Handbrake?
The MOZA HBP Handbrake is the first real additional sim racing peripheral from MOZA Racing. The company has spent the past year or two creating racing wheel after racing wheel along with a range of pedal sets.
But this handbrake is a big step towards creating a full lineup of sim racing products and peripherals. All we really need now is an external shifter, and thankfully MOZA has released both the SGP sequential shifter and HGP H-pattern shifter.
But today, I’m going to be reviewing this new handbrake. I’ll check out how well it has been designed, how sturdy and well-built it is and look at the overall performance to see if it is worth picking up.
I’ll touch on the upgrades and the design tweaks in a minute, but first, I just want to disclose that the folks at MOZA Racing sent me this product for review. This in no way impacts the outcome of this review.
Price
So before I look at any design or performance, I’ll touch on the price, and this is a bit of good news as this sim racing handbrake is very competitively priced.
The MOZA HBP handbrake costs under £/$100 at just $99, £95 and €109.
- Buy the MOZA Handbrake (United States) – $99
- Buy the MOZA Handbrake (United Kingdom) – £95
- Buy the MOZA Handbrake (Europe) – €109
- Buy the MOZA Handbrake (Australia) – $159
Compared with other sim racing handbrakes, most cost over the £/$100 mark with a few exceptions. But I was pleasantly surprised when I was told the price, as I think it makes this handbrake very accessible. This is something that MOZA Racing is really focusing on, especially with their recent string of products, such as the low-cost R5 wheelbase.
The Design of the MOZA HBP Handbrake
So, jumping into the design, this handbrake looks very impressive out of the box. The design is very angular and quite aggressive, while also looking rather premium and a little understated.
I have to say I quite like the look of the handbrake, as it is much edgier than others on the market. MOZA hasn’t just opted for a rectangular black box, and straight shaft, they have put some thought into making this thing look nice.
This is a vertical handbrake by design, but you can mount the handle horizontally, giving you a couple of options. The handle position is adjustable a fair bit. As I mentioned, you can mount it horizontally or vertically, but you can also completely adjust the angle at which you mount the handle.
I initially mounted the handle straight up, but once I got it mounted to my sim rig, I noticed I kept hitting the back of my arm on my seat bolster. So out came the spanners and I adjusted the handle to be angled forward by around 10 degrees, and this made it much more comfortable to use.
Having this wide range of adjustability is really nice to have.
Materials used
The materials are high quality, with most of the handbrake constructed from black powder-coated aluminium.
The main base, shaft, and even the handle are all made of aluminium, making this handbrake look and feel rather premium.
There is a bit of plastic on the side which houses the connection ports, but this has been cleverly blended into the metal base thanks to its black colour and angular design. Unless you get very close and start touching parts, you wouldn’t know this segment is plastic.
One thing I do have to note, though, which I personally didn’t like too much, was that I would have actually preferred the handle to be finished in a softer material, either rubber or foam.
This is because I wear a ring on my left hand, and when I’m sim racing without gloves, this scratches on the handle. I have to be very conscious to hold the handle a little looser to avoid this happening. In the heat of a rally cross race or when quickly grabbing the handbrake to initiate a quick drift isn’t always at the forefront of my mind.
Maybe MOZA will consider this and release a few handle accessories. The handle itself screws on and off so you can quite easily swap it out if needed.
Mounting
I was pretty happy with the mounting options with this handbrake. There are six holes on the underside, which are pre-drilled to fit with most sim rigs. I have used just the two centre-aligned holes with my Trak Racer TR8 Pro rig, and they align perfectly with the handbrake mount.
There aren’t any side mounting options though, despite it looking like a couple of pre-drilled holes. So you will have to go with an underside mounting solution. There is a desk clamp sold separately for those without a sim rig.
Adjustability
The adjustability of this sim racing handbrake is pretty good. I’ve mentioned the different ways that you can mount the handbrake shaft, but you can also adjust the stiffness of the handbrake.
Inside the box, you get a second spring included and another elastomer. If you find the yellow spring that is pre-mounted to the handbrake a little light, and would like some added resistance, you can remove the yellow spring and install the blue spring.
This will adjust the resistance every time you pull on the handbrake. Personally, I quite like the handbrake’s weight and resistance in its stock layout, but it is relatively easy to pull, so I can imagine some sim racers would certainly opt for the stiffer resistance.
To actually change the spring, there is a little deconstruction required, as you need to disassemble part of the shifter to reach the internal mechanism before reassembling it all. But there is a tonne of tools included, so you won’t have to go rummaging through your DIY draw for a specific-sized Allen key.
As with most MOZA products, you can make some adjustments in the included Pit House software. With the handbrake, this is limited to adjusting the output curve. But this can be important when really fine-tuning the handbrake to your own requirements.
MOZA Handbrake Performance
So now, let’s jump into the meat and potatoes of any sim racing review and see how this MOZA Handbrake performs.
Initial impressions are certainly good. There is very little play side to side, which echoes the good build quality of this handbrake.
The handbrake is well-dampened at both ends. When you pull the handbrake to 100%, a rubber stopper dampens any noise and allows you to give this handbrake a bit of abuse.
As you release the handbrake, it also returns to its original position, with a good amount of damping. Now, you probably shouldn’t simply let go of the handbrake, but if you get a little overexcited and do so, it’s not the end of the world.
You can see in this clip that during use, one of the bolts actually came loose, and the top part of the handbrake started to wobble a bit. I think this was more down to my incompetent DIY skills rather than the bolts actually loosening over time. I tightened them after filming this, and so far, I have not encountered the same issue.
There isn’t too much of a progressive feel, instead, the travel feels smooth and rather linear. It doesn’t quite give you the feel of a real-world handbrake or that of a hydraulic sim racing handbrake, but for the price, you can’t really expect it to.
Compatibility
As with all MOZA products, this handbrake is fully compatible with the rest of their sim racing product range. It can also be used with any other sim racing product on PC as a stand-alone handbrake.
So if you are rocking a Simucube or Fanatec sim racing setup on PC, you can still add this handbrake, connect it to your PC, and it’ll work like a charm.
On the front face or rear, depending on which way you look at it, there are two connection ports. You have a USB port, which is the one you would use if connecting it directly to your PC, as I have. And then there is an RJ port, which allows you to connect it directly to your MOZA wheel base via the Universal Hub.
MOZA doesn’t currently have any console support, so this won’t work with an Xbox or PS5 as of yet. But I would suspect that if consoles are supported via a new wheelbase in the future, this handbrake will probably work when connected to your wheelbase. At least, I hope so.
Should you buy the MOZA HBP Handbrake?
So, we come to my final thoughts. I have to say my time with this MOZA handbrake has been almost entirely positive.
When you consider where this handbrake sits within the realm of sim racing handbrakes, it undercuts many equivalent products in terms of price. I believe that it has overachieved in its design and build quality.
The impressive adjustability on offer allows you to configure this handbrake to your specific needs much better than the competition.
During the heat of a rally stage or if you’re having some fun drifting, this handbrake is a smooth operator, and I’d certainly recommend it for consideration.
Technical Specifications
Review written by Felix König
