Victorville, Calif.—-Thunder Works Engine Machine is a true “mom and pop” shop, Co-owner Marv Grogan said. “It’s just myself and my wife, Suzann, who joined me here in 2002.” And that’s just the way Grogan said he likes it. “We’re a very little shop that makes very big horsepower.”
That was the objective Grogan said he had when he founded the company in 1998. “I also had a goal of being a quality-oriented shop that would meet, and even exceed, the performance requirements of quality-minded motor heads.”
Thunder Works has been open 11 years, but Grogan said he has almost 30 years of experience in all aspects of high-performance machining and custom assemblies.
“I worked for Taylor Engines in Whittier for many years, and I did a lot of engine work for Clay Smith Cams in Buena Park before opening this shop,” he said.
Grogan said the shop specializes in building high-performance engines (including small- and big-block strokers), as well as custom, high-quality machining and parts for all gasoline, alcohol, ethanol, e85, LPG, CNG, and propane engines.
“We understand 'flex fuels,' and most importantly, we know what an engine needs for modifications when using them,” he said.
Thunder Works also specializes in rebuilding antique automobile engines, Grogan said. “I have a 1941 Lincoln Zephyr V-12 engine, a 1937 Chrysler six cylinder, and a 331 V-8 Cadillac engine that I’m working on right now.”
Grogan said Thunder Works does everything but crank grinding in-house. “And I even offer that service. I do my own balancing, align boring, we have a Sunnen CK10 for cylinder honing, two Bridgeport mills for custom machining, several lathes, and drill presses.”
“Having Suzann in the shop has really helped our business grow,” Grogan said. “She disassembles engines, and I’m training her to do machine work, plus she takes care of our books, helps customers at the front counter, and takes care of our Web site.”
“Most of the people in Southern California and even the Southwest know about us,” Suzann Grogan said. “Our Web site has helped our business; we’ve increased about 20 percent off of the Web site,” she said.
“We get a lot of inquiries from all over the country. It’s expanded our market beyond that area and the Southern California car culture,” she said. “They’re doing Internet searches, stumbling across our Web site, poking around, and liking what they see.”
Marv Grogan said the labor side of his business is steady or even up but that he’s not making the amount of money on parts that he used to make. “For a small shop like mine, mail-order/Internet-purchased parts have always been a challenge to compete with because of the bulk pricing large companies can offer,” he said.
Now, with the economy, Grogan said people are shopping around even more. “They’re trying to save $5 on parts, and I’m not going to try to compete with these Internet wholesalers and sell a part that I only make 10 percent on,” he said. “I might as well be in the shop doing machine work.
“I’ve always got plenty of machine work. I have shops that just send me their machine work on blocks and other parts.”
Grogan said parts purchased online are often the wrong parts, which slows down the project and causes its own set of problems.
“Many times, customers don't immediately know the difference between the ‘inexpensive part’ they see online and the quality, specialized part they want or need for their application,” he said. “Part of my job is getting them the information they need to make an informed decision.
Educating my customers so they can make the right decision is important.”
Grogan said that by remaining true to his original objective, Thunder Works has become one of the most recognized high-performance engine and general machine shops the High Desert area of Southern California and well beyond.
“We have regular customers in La Habra, Whittier, Temecula, even San Diego, Lake Havasu City, and we have a good customer in Las Vegas that sends us a lot of high-performance work,” he said.
“We’ve found our location hasn’t been a problem, just the opposite,” Suzann Grogan said. “Our customers from La Habra, Whittier, even down south don’t mind driving up here because they’re going against the traffic and they don’t have to drive through Los Angeles. They have easy access to Interstate 15 and Victorville and we’re two blocks off the freeway.
“Even the shop we do business with in Las Vegas can get here in a couple of hours, pick up the parts they need, and be back to the shop by noon,” she said.
“We have pledged to treat our customers with respect, to listen to their torque and horsepower requirements, to give them our honest opinions and valid recommendations, to explain our methods if requested to, and to deal honestly with them throughout this process,” Marv Grogan said.
“We also promise to do the best-quality work we can, to use parts we have confidence will meet our customers’ needs and our quality requirements, and to do a job right rather than cheap,” he said. “We will turn away business rather than knowingly perform inadequate work or use subpar items.”
Among Thunder Works’ most notable projects is the Venom Racing Toyota Tundra pickup, which Grogan said set a world’s record in 2003 as the fastest Toyota Tundra, going more than 300 miles an hour.
