KartaRailed

About a week ago, I finally got my 03 evolution back from Billet Design Motorsports in Pompano Beach, Florida. My car had been down for some time, getting a trannsmission rebuilt, from Shepard Racing, as well as a new clutch, the ATS Carbonetics Twin Plate. I have been writing this slowly from the day after I picked the car up, to better show how I have felt about the work completed, the overall quality, and so on.

Billet Design Motorsports. Before I had ever even bought or considered buying an evo, I knew the name from being into cars in south florida. When I finally began modding my car, I purchased my megan turbo back exhaust from them, and had Marco, the owner, give me a base flash. I was pleased a lot with how it woke the car up to say the least. The quality of the work was outstanding, and even when they had problems with getting the bolts on my rusted stock exhaust off, they didnt charge me any extra for the labor. I was extremly pleased to say the least.

After that good experence, I knew that I had found a great shop who actually cared about their customers. This made me use Billet again for a much bigger job, a clutch installation and removal of my transmission to send to Shepard racing for a full rebuilt and REM/Cryo treatment. Marco, through the entire process kept me informed as to what was going on, and when he could hopefully have the car back on the road.

Shepard Racing. All I can say is wow. When I first got into the car and drove it, the gear box felt different, but I wasnt able to figure out why, as the clutch wasnt yet broken in. After the last couple of days, this transmission feels amazing, there isnt a grind in sight, even a 7500 rpm 4th to 5th shift didnt even have a tiny grind. The transmission shifts smooth as glass all the way through the gears, and there is no second gear grind even without any motormounts or engine dampers. Thank you Mr.Shepard for a fine service rendered.

ATS Carbonetics Twin Plate. This clutch and me have been fighting it out for the last couple of weeks, and I finally have won. At first, the clutch pedal feel was horrific, it was hard as a brick, seemed to only have two positions, engaged or disengaged, and was impossible to slip at all, it was hard to get the car to drive from a stop, and if you were able to, the harsh engagement would make the entire car shake, almost violently. After 3 or 4 days, it started to loosen up a little bit, making the pedal feel better, but the violent starts were still there, and not going away. Thats when I started adjusting the pedal up and down. I have since found a nearly perfect pedal adjustment, and the engagement, although still way more difficult than stock, is almost completly smooth, I think one more round of adjustments and a few hundered more miles on the clutch and it will be perfect. Another thing about this clutch, it is LOUD. I thought that by getting this over a tilton twin ceremetallic, I could avoid a clutch that had chatter noise so loud on deceleration that it would set off a p0300 code, but alas, I was incorrect. My car now randomly gives me warnings about random multiple misfires, even thought its running perfectly. I dont think, even though the clutch feels amazing to row through the gears with, that I would have in retrospect put such an all out race car part on what right now is my daily driver. However, its not something I regret.

Overall, I am extremly content. The car is great, and other than the somewhat harsh 1st gear engagement, and the p0300 codes, it is an amazing clutch, the shepard transmission is flawless, and all of the work performed at Billet was top notch. Thank you's go out to Marco, Chris, and Robbie at Billet Design Motorsports for taking the time to make sure everthing was perfect, to Mr.Shepard at http://www.sheptrans.com/, for a perfectly rebuilt transmission, and to the people at ATS for having such a fine product, even if it does only belong on a race car.

rsturbo

Thanks for the review! Shep has been great with all the work he does for us. he has done many trans. and t-case's and we havent had any problems with anything he did. The other's that got the carbonetic clutch loves it also, it just takes a little playing with the adjustments, then it feels normal. We also used the carbonetic LSD's in the race car and it worked out awesome.
Thanks,
Marco

KartaRailed

I think I broke something racing on saturday night, have to get it on my friends lift, will get back to you soon, hopefully its nothing, but I lauched and it made a weird noise, but I havent heard anything since, maybe I ran something over.

sekula

iTrader: (31)

figure out what it was, I plan on getting a shep trans upgrade and t-case but wanna be sure I'm putting it in the right hands and will get it back quickly...