I talked to Billy a couple of months ago. There's a fair few new gear parts and quite a bit of machining involved so the price for a "one off" upgraded box is unavoidably high. Cutting one off gears doesn't come cheap. Without in any way committing him to ànything, it would probably need ten but preferably a good few more people to commit to the conversion to make it viable for a production run at a reasonable price.
Getting another box out in the wild with his upgrades to prove how effective it is would seem like a smart move: there have been several cures for the loud bevel boxes going right back to the early days of the M3Ws, but none of them seem to have worked for everybody. Billy's upgrades do sound like the most fundamental re-engineering of the box that I've heard of.
Incidentally, I do have a knackered bevel box that I acquired that I could donate to the cause to get a chain of exchange units on the go if it helps should a production run happen (assuming it's repairable of course) but I can't afford to pay for that second "one-off" upgraded box to prove the upgrades.
