MOZA Racing SGP Sequential Shifter
Towards the end of 2023, we received the R5 Bundle from MOZA Racing for review, which is a fantastic starter bundle for sim racers looking to take their first step towards the higher segment with a Direct Drive wheelbase. A few months prior, we received the HGP Shifter from MOZA; a comfortable H-pattern shifter with a very favorable price-performance ratio. One small remark we made at that time is that we were disappointed that the HGP Shifter did not have an option to use it in sequential mode. Our prayers have been answered; because recently MOZA Racing asked us to test and evaluate their all new sequential shifter.
The sequential shifter from MOZA Racing, which bears the name SGP Sequential Shifter, is a new product and fills a void in the MOZA lineup. The SGP Sequential Shifter can be directly connected to a desktop PC via USB or via the RJ11 data cable to a MOZA Racing R12, R16, or R21 wheelbase. At the time of writing, the SGP Sequential Shifter is available in the MOZA Racing webshop for a price tag of €139.00.
Packaging & Contents
The MOZA Racing SGP Sequential Shifter was shipped to us from China and took 5 days to be delivered to us by FedEx. In this process, we paid €18.50 in import fees. We received a brown shipping box, inside of which was the product box of the SGP Sequential Shifter.
The product box of the SGP Sequential Shifter is a box as we know it from MOZA Racing. It’s a compact white box with a full-color image of the shifter, MOZA branding all around, and a recognizable light blue accent on top. Upon opening the box, we slide out the entire contents of soft, black foam. First, we see a separate thin layer of black foam. Beneath this, we first find the manual, and below that, we find the SGP Sequential Shifter and it’s accessories.
The SGP Sequential Shifter is nestled in a very soft plastic bag within a snug cutout in the black foam. Surrounding it, we find the shifter handle, a USB and RJ11 cable, and a bag containing four M6 bolts and washers, two spanners, and an Allen key. It’s noteworthy that there are no nuts or T-slot nuts included. Overall, the box and its contents from MOZA are as we know them: straightforward and simply well taken care of. We’re certainly eager to get started with the SGP Sequential Shifter right away!
Engineering & Quality
The MOZA Racing SGP Sequential Shifter is constructed from steel and high-quality aerospace-grade aluminum. The initial impression is that the sequential shifter is very well-finished both visually and to the touch. The base of the shifter is fully black anodized, while polished details are present on the arm and the handle, giving the shifter an intriguing appearance. The SGP Sequential Shifter has a pleasant weight that contributes to the sense of quality it offers without feeling overly heavy. When gripping the handle, we feel some slight play in all directions, but we don’t see it as a problem, and overall, the shifter simply feels solid. The handle is also equipped with a standard M12 thread, allowing it to be interchangeable with aftermarket handles.
To register all shifting actions, the SGP Sequential Shifter is equipped with a friction-free Hall-effect sensor. Additionally, the sequential shifter is equipped with an excellent lever-shaped button at the rear of the handle, allowing to quickly put your virtual car in neutral or reverse gear, for example. On top of the shifter base, we find two buttons labeled S1 and S2, each equipped with customizable RGB LEDs. Somewhat disappointingly, no stickers or labels are included to allow for custom labeling on the buttons. At the bottom of the SGP Shifter, we find four screw threads for the included M6 bolts. At the ends of the shifter base, there are two sets of three holes to mount the shifter at an angle on an aluminum profile or a shifter plate.
Furthermore, the SGP Sequential Shifter is also adjustable. To start, the shifter lever can be extended in height by 64mm, which we consider a significant advantage. Additionally, even the resistance of the shifter can be adjusted via an adjustment bolt located inside the side of the shifter base, allowing the shifting feel to be set lighter or heavier. Unfortunately, we did not find this instruction in the (very) concise manual and had to read about it on the MOZA Racing website to be made aware of it.
Considering all the technical specifications, the extra buttons, and the adjustment options, we can’t help but say that the MOZA Racing SGP Sequential Shifter is an incredibly comprehensive shifter in these aspects for its price. It carries features that we would have only expected in models with a much higher price tag. This makes us very excited to put the shifter to the test and experience whether the actual performance lives up to this expectation.
Mounting
As mentioned, four bolts and washers are included with the SGP Sequential Shifter, but we find no nuts or T-slot nuts in the box. This means that, with the provided materials, we can only mount the shifter on a plate where the four M6 bolts are screwed in from below into the underside of the shifter. However, we are going to mount the MOZA Racing SGP Sequential Shifter directly onto the shifter frame of our TREQ Ace sim rig, which consists of an aluminum profile. Fortunately for us, we first remove the Simagic DS-8X shifter, and then we can reuse the M6 T-slot nuts that we previously used for that for the MOZA Racing SGP Sequential Shifter. We position the shifter as desired, screw the provided M6 bolts into the T-slot nuts, and thus have the shifter immediately mounted on our sim rig. We connect the USB cable and are ready to dive into the software.
Software
After connecting the SGP Sequential Shifter to our USB hub, it is immediately recognized by Windows. To use and configure the shifter, MOZA’s software is required, called MOZA Pit House, which can be downloaded from their website. We already have it installed on our PC, so the shifter is also immediately recognized here.
Once we launched MOZA Pit House, we click on the SGP Sequential Shifter on the left side of the menu to open the settings page. Interestingly, the shifter is referred to as ‘SGP Sequential Gearbox’ here. On the left, we see a visualization of the shifter, with all input options lighting up nicely as we use them on our shifter. There’s also a toggle to display the actual numbers of the input options. On the right side are the actual settings. Here, we can adjust the colors of the RGB LEDs for each button, as well as adjust their brightness in 10 steps brighter or dimmer, or turn them off completely. Below that, we find a switch to adjust the direction of shifting up and down. In the racing games we use, this is unnecessary because we assign the input options in-game. Finally, we encounter the ‘Pick button synchronization’ option, which we cannot activate and for which there is no description of its function. We suspect that this option is only available when the shifter is connected to one of the compatible MOZA Racing wheelbases mentioned, with have an RJ11 connection for the shifter; a MOZA Racing R12, R16, or R21 wheelbase.
The MOZA Pit House software for the SGP Sequential Shifter is fairly simple yet straightforward. We simply adjusted the RGB LEDs to our liking and set their brightness to maximum, and we are now ready to test the shifter.
Driving with the SGP Sequential Shifter
We’re going to test the MOZA Racing SGP Sequential Shifter in Dirt Rally 2.0. We start the game and simply assign the directions we want to use for shifting up and down, and we’re ready to hit the track.
The initial impression we get from the SGP Sequential Shifter is simply excellent. The shifter feels quite mechanical, not overly dampened or too smooth. A side effect of this is that the shifter does produce some noise when shifting up and down. In our opinion, this adds to the experience, but for sim racers sharing living space with a partner or housemate who are more sensitive to noise, it might be too much. The end points of the shifter’s throw feel firm but not as harsh and direct as steel-on-steel, making it still comfortable. The throw of the entire shifter feels very nice and is exactly what we would expect from a sequential shifter. With the shifter arm at its shortest setting, we measure approximately 3 to 3.5 cm of throw in one direction at the highest point of the handle.
We find the preset resistance with which the shifter comes out of the box to be very pleasant. The resistance is certainly not too light, nor too heavy. It’s just enough to require some assertiveness to operate the shifter, which we always see as a plus – depending on the type of product we’re testing, of course. The shifter also returns swiftly to its resting position, allowing for quick shifts. As mentioned earlier, we do notice some slight play when gripping the handle, but this is hardly noticeable while driving. Personally, we don’t see this as a problem; it adds to the mechanical feel of the shifter and enhances the sensation of the resistance we need to push through to shift.
The lever placed under the rear of the handle, which acts as a button to quickly put the car into neutral or reverse gear, for example, is in a comfortable location and has a nice shape to it. However, we find the resistance on the lever less comfortable; it feels too smooth and soft compared to the rest of the shifter. It feels and operates as if it’s an analog lever that registers how far you press it, but that’s not the case. A button with a short throw and a firmer click would have been our personal preference here. The buttons on the top of the shifter base, on the other hand, feel superb. They fit nicely into their dedicated housing, have some travel but offer very pleasant resistance. The buttons have minimal play and feel satisfyingly ‘clicky.’ In our opinion, these are the ideal buttons to use for ignition and to start and stop the car’s engine. This way, we still get some utility out of the SGP Sequential Shifter even when we’re not driving a car with a sequential gearbox.
Adjusting the arm of the SGP Sequential Shifter is easy with the two provided wrenches. We can simply loosen and remove the nuts and bolts from each other, adjust the height, and then put the bolts back through to secure the arm again. Both the base side and the handle side of the arm are equipped with enough holes to pass the bolts through. Ultimately, we can adjust the length of the arm in four steps. In our case, we cannot test the shifter in the longest two settings because the shifter or our hand would then hit our monitor. This is obviously a limitation of our setup, not of the shifter.
As mentioned, there is a hole on the side of the SGP Sequential Shifter with an adjustment screw that can be used to adjust the shifter’s resistance. When we loosen this with the provided Allen key, we notice that the shifter becomes lighter and feels slightly smoother when pushing the arm through the resistance. The noise production also decreases slightly. When we tighten the adjustment screw further, the resistance of the shifter increases, making it heavier to operate. If we tighten the adjustment screw too much, we notice that the shifter arm has a hard time returning to its resting position, as it has to overcome the increased resistance. This makes the shifter feel somewhat sticky, and we cannot set the resistance as heavy as we might have liked because of it.
Conclusion
With the release of their SGP Sequential Shifter, MOZA Racing has filled a gap in their lineup. The sequential shifter feels very sturdy and is built with high-quality materials. Not only is the price tag competitive, but the features it comes equipped with also make it a very compelling product within the MOZA ecosystem.
The shifting feel of the SGP Sequential Shifter can be described as excellent, with the throw on the shifter arm feeling very comfortable. Even with the standard setting as it comes out of the box, the resistance is good and requires assertiveness to operate. There’s a satisfying tactile click when shifting up and down, and the shifter returns swiftly to its resting position, allowing for quick shifts. There is some slight play present on the shifter arm in all directions, but we don’t find this to be bothersome or detract from the feel of the shifter. We find the handle of the SGP Sequential Shifter very comfortable, but for enthusiasts, this handle with standard M12 threading can also be replaced with an aftermarket one.
The lever-shaped button beneath the handle is tactically well-placed, but we would have liked it to have a bit more resistance, less travel and a firmer ‘click’. The addition of two extra buttons is ideal, and the fact that they are equipped with customizable RGB LEDs is definitely a nice bonus. With only the four included bolts, the mounting materials are aimed at bottom-mount installation. For mounting on an aluminum profile or from above, additional M6 (T-slot) nuts are required.
The fact that the SGP Sequential Shifter offers multiple adjustment options is a great plus. The arm is easy to adjust in length, and there’s even an option to adjust the resistance of the shifter. In practice, we find the default setting to be already good; when we adjust it much harder, the shifter struggles to return to its resting position causing it to feel sticky, and with too light of a setting, the feel of the shifter diminishes. The fact that there even is an option to adjust the resistance of a shifter in this price range is something we can only commend MOZA for.
Overall, the MOZA Racing SGP Sequential Shifter is a very strong addition to the MOZA lineup, and we especially appreciate its excellent price-to-performance ratio. We don’t see any real downsides to the shifter and thoroughly enjoyed testing it. Especially for its price, we consider the SGP Sequential Shifter to be a powerhouse with all its features and adjustment options. For sim racers looking to upgrade to a full-fledged sequential shifter without spending several hundred euros, the MOZA Racing SGP Sequential Shifter is definitely worth considering.
At the time of writing, the SGP Sequential Shifter is available in the MOZA Racing webshop for a price tag of €139.00.
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