Our good friend ShinJN, from SRK, got his hands on a Mad Catz Street Fighter IV Arcade FightStick: Tournament Edition and worked his magic fingers on a comprehensive video review that shows off all the best features and mod possibilites on this premium arcade stick (WARNING: This will void your warranty)! Click below for all of the videos in his eight part series of getting inside the Tournament Edition FightStick!
ShinJN’s Video Extravaganza on the SF4 TE FightStick
1. Introduction and Disassembly
2. Main PCB and Terminal Block Overview
3. Control Module and USB Cable Compartment Overview
4. Top Control Panel Overview and Brief Art Mod Discussion
5. Using Other Japanese Buttons
6. Seimitsu and JLF Swapping
7. Fitting Happ/iL parts in the TE
8. Overall Summary
EXTRA: Lock Switch Mod
EXTRA: Solderless Tricks & Tips for QDs and Ribbon Connectors
Thanks ShinJN!
SDTEKKEN.COM - TEKKEN News Resource! 
First
Mother fucker. Most modable stick every my ass. This is more of a pain than a freakin T5 Hori to mod. I shouldn’t have bought into the hype. The placement of the pcbs, the depth of the stick, the room given you to work, all worse than the T5 Hori. Uhhhhhhh this is going to be such a pain to mod.
^ lol
It’s all your fault Markman. I heard you designed this stick. Why the hell couldn’t you have given me more space to work with?! Not that it can’t be done, it can but it’s going to be such a pain. No maybe I should blame Seth Killin. He said it was the most modible stick ever. Son of a bitch!
What are you trying to do exactly?
As it stands it is the most ‘mod friendly’ for Japanese parts.
It’s only mod friendly for basic japanese Sanwa and Semetsu. I mean look, you cant use screw ins without filling down one of them, you can’t use anything that doesn’t line up with that JLF style mounting plat without some serious work.
JLW, a Taeyoung, a Happ, a Myoungshin, and most LS Seimitsus looks like they will not fit easily into this at all.
The stick is fine if you want a Sanwa stick and buttons but is it really more viable for modding then an HRP2 or HRP3? Not really.
I really should not be hating so much because it is a FULL Sanwa stick. It’s just for me I got it because I was hoping for an easier mod than one of my existing HRPs for a Myyoungshin Fantasia K-Stick.
Really I’m just ranting. No one should care what I’m saying unless you are going for some kind of exotic mod and chances are people are not.
Edit oh Nvm it’ll do Seimitsu better than I thought. That video wasn’t up yesterday.
Like I said, Seimitsu and Sanwa will be fine in these.
If you want a stick that will be friendly with Korean parts, wait til the Tekken 6 stick or something.
Korean parts were never considered in this project.
We went with the most popular style mounting bracket (HRAP1 Ver. A/HRAP2).
You do understand that creating a mounting plate that will fit Happ/IL, Korean sticks, Sanwa AND Seimitsu would be almost impossible right? I mean, I’m sure it can be done, but is it really worth the trouble to tool something like that when the company making them is against people opening up their sticks/voiding warranty?
Take a look at current Hori sticks, they aren’t even Seimitsu friendly anymore.
Unless it is from a company that cares about what you do INSIDE, I don’t think a super universal mounting plate/bracket will ever come to fruition unless a community member makes one ON THEIR OWN TIME.
It’s not even about the mounting bracker Mark. It’s the amount of space provided. Screw a mounting bracket. The only thing I would care is making the bracket easier to remove. I’m not saying I want a K-stick mounting bracket. I’d never work with anything else if you did because the mountain bracket would have to be so high due to the like 3/4 an inch need for the big black part of the K-stick.
It’s about room really. Give me the open space and an easily removable mounting bracket like on the T5Hori and I can do the rest. This stick though looks like, a.) there isn’t enough room beacuse of where the stick is placed near the turbo and cord box for a K-stick and not enough depth since it needs to house a K-stick plus the huge spacer needed to make the stick sit properly.
I don’t think Happ people care about the mounting plate I think they care about the amount of room given to work, same as me.
Well, if you take out the mounting plate, a Happ will fit. Happs are bigger than Myoungshin and Taeyoung Fantas, I don’t think there will be an issue there.
But again Happs can be fitted directly to the metal top plate. Fantas can’t they need a spacer because of the big black base of the stick.
Not to mention the positioning of the pins stick out more than Happs. That was even a problem for the T5Hori as you need to either NOT use quick disconnects or you have to cut out the thing that would hold the turbo function.
Mark I appriciate you discussing this with me but either way it’s a wait and see thing. If there is enough room than I will gladly retract all of my statements but I wont know until I have the stick in my hand.
I have an extra Myoungshin Fanta and I’ll see what I can do with it after this weekend.
I have a busy week this week so probably after I recover from the SF4 launch party I’ll give it a whirl.
Zero I think you’re mistaking MOST with PERFECT. The FightStick is the MOST modable stick out there when you compare it to every other retail stick out there. The idea of a PERFECTLY modable RETAIL stick is just impractical. Keep in mind that the primary goal of the stick is to actually use it, NOT to mod it. Modability is just an added bonus.
No. You’re wrong. HRP series is more modable. The HRP series has everything the SFIV stick has plus more space and it’s easier to mod/dissassemble. The SFIV stick has perks like full Sanwa out of the box, the cord box, and the start and select button positions but when it comes to MODING I still think the HRP is superior.
Whatever. The stick should be good for everyone who doesn’t want HAPP or Korean parts in it.
I’m not an expert so you may be right about the amount of space inside. But there are still other bonuses such as the labeling of wires and the ease of changing the artwork. This makes part of the mod itself more intuitive than an HRAP.
And I have to disagree with the disassembly being harder. As far as I know, most of the HRAP’s require you to remove the bottom and then unscrew the top panel from inside (the HRAP2:SA is an exception and has hex-key’s as well). So isn’t simply removing the hex-keys from the top easier than having to open up the stick from the bottom and unscrew the panel from the inside?
Again, I’m not a total expert, but some of these things are definitely improvements over the retail sticks that have been available in the past.
I’m not going to argue. We have differnt opinions and that’s what makes the world go round. The stick will be in my hands in 4 days, I’ll know then how they compare.
Hey Mark, do you know if the sf4 se version is easy to mod? I’m trying to put in a sanwa joystick on it
Do you have pics or tutorial on modding SFIV SE arcade stick? I purchased this thing on tuesday and it has already failed by wensday. I would like to mod it with Sawana buttons which I have ordered and new plate to eliminate the cornering. I just would like to know if you have any advise on this stick mod, before I go in.
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Oh my god, post pictures.
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