The shop, which opened in 1972, gets an occasional retail customer walking in, but General Manager Derek Ranney said, "We don't cater to retail.  We do so much with the garages and distributors that we don't want to step on their toes."

Because the company works with other automotive professionals, service and quality are paramount, Derting said.  "You have to maintain a high level of quality," he said.  "You can't expect them to do things that you should have done.  We have a strong work ethic and really focus on quality."

Derting said L&R offers pickup and delivery within 10 miles of the shop and works to provide a timely turnaround on the work they are doing for other shops.  He said the shop provides a 12-month/12,000-mile warranty on traditional and restoration work and a 90-day warranty on performance work. 

"You can't get too crazy with your warranty on performance work or it will bury you," he said.

About 30 percent of the shop's work is standard automotive machining, 30 percent for forklifts, 25 percent performance, and about 15 percent is cylinder heads, Derting said.  He said that overall, about 60 percent of all work is on cylinder heads and 40 percent engine-related because engine rebuilds generally include reworking the heads, plus the additional 15 percent of their work that is cylinder heads only.

The forklift work has been a steady segment in recent years, Derting said but the current economic situation leaves it a bit uncertain.  "Hopefully it won't drop off," he said.  "It will really depend on where the economy goes and whether they can afford to replace their forklifts or not."

The shop has always done some performance work for racers and for street cars but Derting said it has grown noticeably in the last two to three years.  While the shop received some publicity by building 12 motors for the TV show "Overhaulin'" and several articles on performance-engine rebuilding that appeared in Hot Rod magazine and another in sister publication Hot Rod Deluxe on engine restoration, he credits the overall growth of the performance market with most of the increase they have been seeing.

"The performance market has just grown so much," Derting said.  "A lot of prices have been coming down to where it's affordable to an average guy that wants to build a motor.  A crankshaft that was $5,000 10 years ago is now $2,000."

Derting said L&R has for seven years been a distributor for Scat Crankshafts of Redondo Beach, which provides a range of high-quality performance engine components, but he has noticed a surge in interest in the past three years as prices have dropped and shows such as "Overhaulin" have drawn a large mainstream audience.

"I hope it continues to grow," he said of the performance business.  "I think with the quality of the products coming out, it has every chance to keep growing."

The participation in the TV show and the magazines all came from referrals from local shops and suppliers that L&R works with, Derting said.  "You just have to keep plugging away every day, and once in a while this kind of stuff comes along."

He said it helps that the shop has always been open to working on whatever comes in the door.  "If you turn stuff away, you're turning away part of your customer base.  There are always little niches that need to be upgraded in your business a little bit."

Each area has its own differences and requires that the shop keeps its pencil sharp, Derting said.  "You have to get a little more on the restoration work because you're tied up on it a little longer, because parts availability is slower and they are bit more expensive," he said. 

 
"You still make a little more on a standard Chevy or Daewoo because you can get them in and out," but just the same, the restoration and performance work is fun and keeps them all engaged, he said.

Derting said the machine shop keeps a mix of new and older equipment to serve its varied customer base.  For instance, he said the shop has an older-style Winona Van Norman broach resurfacer as well as a modern Rottler SF7M CBN Cutter.

 
"For resurfacing blocks and heads, the Rottler is a Cadillac," he said.  "The performance people are concerned about the roughness of the cut surface, and the Rottler provides a very smooth surface." 

 
The four machinists in L&R's head department also have a Serdi S4.0 valve seat and guide machine, which cuts all three angles at the same time.  "The performance guys really like what this machine can do because it has so much better control," Derting said.

Other equipment in the shop includes a Sunnen CV616 vertical honing machine, a Rottler F5 boring machine, and a Sunnen CH100K line hone.  The shop's balancing department includes a Pro-Bal Industrial Balancers stand with a Stewart-Warner Industrial Balancer computer.

"We do a lot of performance balancing for other shops that either don't have the equipment or get backed up," he said.
Derting said that in the end, the shop's real advantage is the experience of its employees.  He has been in the industry for more than 35 years, he said, including owning his own jobber store for a number of years, while Owner Larkin Ranney has more than 40 years of experience, and a number of the machine shops employees have been in the industry for more than 20 years. 

"We all stay hands-on all the time to keep in the game," he said.  "Some people do this as a job, which is fine, but we also do this because it is what we love."