Welcome the Fanatec Clubsport Shifter and Handbrake to the family. My wife Alex pre-ordered them as a birthday gift for me and I got a nice surprise on Feb 10th when they arrived in the mail, earlier than I had expected. I immediately got to work mounting them to the rig.
My decision to go with the Fanatec Clubsport Shifter SQ was swayed by the Fanatec Clubsport Shifter SQ Review by Inside Sim Racing, plus some other videos of the shifter in action. It appeared to be a good quality for the price as well as being packed with the functionality I wanted, and I have not been disappointed.
I used my own car as a reference for the position of the shift knob and handbrake. I tried to replicate the feeling of being able to drop your hand down from the wheel and have it naturally fall on the shift knob.
The handbrake I attached rally-style, just to the outside of the shift lever. I'm sure I will continue to adjust the position of each control until it feels good for me, but for now I'm satisfied.
The whole new assembly only required a couple feet of material: 24", 6.5", and ~3". I did decide to use a couple of joining plates in addition to the L brackets to increase rigidity. I'm sure I'll be putting everything through its paces.
When mounting the handbrake I just made do with the remaining joining plates I had lying around. I wish I could anchor in to more places on the body of the handbrake, but I don't see any flex issues so I hope it will be ok. The shifter on the other hand I anchored in a number of places, for a total of 4 mounting points: three on the sides (front and back), and one on the bottom. It is without a doubt firmly attached to the new side rail.
I was still able to tuck all the wires neatly away into the channels of the profile, and with the 4-port usb hub in use I still only have to deal with 2 cables coming from the end. These are all the pieces I had envisioned having when I first began building the racing rig, so now I'll have to fine tune and adjust everything while thinking of what to do next.