Out Run
Manufactured by Sega © 1986
| Condition When Purchased: | B- |
| Current Condition: | B+ |
Having owned Out Run twice prior… I knew exactly what I was getting myself in to when I noticed a working example up for sale locally on Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace. I resisted the urge to contact the seller (who happens to be an ex-neighbor and someone I’ve done business with in the past) for about a week or so, but my resolve slowly chipped away to where I decided I was going to throw out a trade suggestion to the seller.
Having a nice vertical multigame (you can read about it HERE) for trade fodder… I figured I would see if Ryan (the seller) would be interested in a straight swap. I figured that while the multigame WAS nice… I could play every game it played on another of my cabinets… but I couldn’t play Out Run on any of my games. After shooting Ryan an email proposing a straight swap and answering a couple questions he had about the Multigame we came to an agreement. He didn’t have a trailer handy… but then again, neither did I (my nephew STILL has his motorcycle sitting on it!)… but I did have a Durango (while Ryan rolls in a compact car)… so I loaded up the vertical multigame and brought it over to Ryan’s new place (he’d lived about 10 doors down from me until about 3 or 4 years ago) which about a 10 mile trip. I picked up the Out Run, which was working as advertised, and headed back home.
After replacing the feet with nylon slider feet (I do this to every game before I bring them in), I wheeled the cabinet in to the garagecade looking to really evaluate the condition of the cab and see what was under the hood. The outside of the cabinet looks pretty damn good overall for a non-restored Outrun. Both sides of the side art are in good shape for the most part… easily the best condition of the 3 Outruns I’ve owned. The plastics are in DECENT shape. My last Outrun has PERFECT plastic so it was a little disappointing finding the couple of cracks in the this ones bezel and control panel… though nothing bad enough to warrant looking for a (very costly) replacement. Knowing Ryan likely had never once opened the game up (he’s a casual PLAYER… only.) I suspected that i would find EXACTLY what I did find… a B-Gear holding on by the skin of it’s teeth (literally). Of course the A, C and D gears all had hairline cracks in them as well. I’ve yet to come across a single Out Run that didn’t exhibit this exact issue. Planning on this being a keeper (at least for a while), I figured I would put in some orders for everything I needed… and some things I really didn’t (but I’m prepared for the future). My parts list included: New aluminum B-gear from the fine folks at Paradise Arcade Shop… a NOS A-gear I picked up on Ebay… 3D printed C and D gears I picked up from Ebay as well. I noticed my START button wasn’t flashing and was missing the START emblem, so I ordered a tiny little bulb for it and a 
fellow KLOV member hooked me up with a suitable replacement (admittedly, not made of metal but I digress). I also donated to The Brain Tumor Charity as requested by the Enhanced Edition author, Chris White and sent him a photo of my ugly mug with my Out Run as requested by him (I assume to prove ownership (you can see that photo below))… but, of course I didn’t have all the necessary EPROMS (I need to pick up some 512K)… which gave me the opportunity to use Steph in Canada for a set. While I probably could have saved the charity donation, I am more than happy to have contributed regardless. Next up on the list of “needs” was the PCM Filter Switch PCB that klov member parism put together. This little add-on board will allow you to remove the filtering the original PCB includes… I’m not entirely sure of the technical specs but what I hear is a clearer sound with it installed. Sort of like turning up the treble a bit… a little more “high fidelity”. I also picked up a 110v fan to replace the jet-engine that Sega loves to put on their cabinets. No… it’s not necessary to exchange air in the entire cabinet three to four times a minute! Finally, I picked up a 1.5F Super Cap to keep my high scores for for a while. After a couple weeks everything had arrived. The aluminum gear from Paradise Arcade is the bee’s knees for sure. The NOS A-Gear looked … well … new. The printed gears looked of acceptable quality as well (though if you ever have a chance to pick up NOS gears … I recommend them).
First up was to clean the wheel control area and replace that B-Gear…which 
had self-destructed while I waited for the parts to arrive after a few sessions. After looking at the other gears and some consideration I decided to KEEP the original A, C and D gears. They all have a single crack in each (all going to the set pin hole of course) but they are in great shape otherwise. If any of them do end up breaking, I do have their replacements sitting in the coin bucket. The whole “control panel” area was filthy… with excess grease on everything. Being that one of the first things that I do on these games is to change the DIP switch to prevent the ridiculous “side-to-side” shaking (the only thing worse is the super-annoying solenoid they use on the mini version of the game)… I’m not too concerned about slathering on the grease. After all was said and done the wheel feels FANTASTIC. Thus far I’ve not seen a bunch of wear to the A-gear as I half-expected due to using the aluminum B-gear with it… I doubt I’ll have an issue as the game is here in a home arcade.
The Outrun Enhanced Edition ROMS are kickass as well… adding 3 new songs (Camino a Mi Amor, Cruising Line, and Sunset Rush). Sunset Rush is a remix of Rush a Difficulty from Turbo Outrun. I really dig Camino a Mi Amor… it’s become one of my favorites. The Enhanced Edition ROMS also fix a corrupted sound sample that made it’s way in to the production ROMS. Both the US and Non-US track orders are available… and high scores save for each. If you want to learn more about the Enhanced Edition ROMS, visit Chris’s site HERE.
I also added something that when I played the game for the first time after it truly blew my mind. Easily the most significant “upgrade” to Outrun IMHO. This is something that each and every owner of Outrun simply MUST do … yesterday… I added a sub-woofer. Holy crap. I can not express just how much nicer the audio is with a sub running in the cabinet. It’s such a profound upgrade in sound that I am at a loss as to why SEGA didn’t include a large woofer (ala Turbo) to the cabinet… as there is a dedicated spot on the PCB for another sound driver… it would have really taken the cabinet to the next level… and a simple small sub does the same thing today. I can not overstate just how much difference adding a sub does to the overall experience of this game. I went scrounging around my shed and came across THREE different small subs from different PC sound systems.. a sound bar… etc. I went with one that has line-in RCA jacks…. pugged right in to those. As for power, I wired in a socket.. and plug the sub off that. I find that I’m running the sub at about 40% it’s volume. It really is a mind-blowingly EASY and WORTH upgrade. If you’ve not done so… do it today! You can head an example comparison that DeLuSiOnAl did on Youtube HERE. That same video runs down what you need to do to exactly. It’s easy!
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