SSCE Machine Shop Tour

Welcome to Steve Schmidt's Race Shop. What you are going to see here is a variety of different photos of the shop as well as many different processes and machining operations that components go through to get to the final completed competitin engine. We hope this helps you understand better what all is involved in making horsepower. Enjoy the Tour!

Typical engine inventory. We try to stock all of our popular fast selling engine combinations.

This is our Pro Stock rental fleet.

This rack of engines shows our new Street Machine/Street Rod line.

This is the lobby of our parts department. We have the biggest parts inventory of any engine shop in the Mid-West.

Steve Schmidt working on a Pro Stock engine block.

This is a view of our engine assembly room. We can comfortably work on six engines at a time.

Dave Amburgey has been with Steve Schmidt Racing for over 20 years and does a lot of the assembly work. He is also involved heavily in the Pro Stock develop-ment work. Dave also goes to the race track and helps our engine customers with their race program.

Adam Layman has been with SSCE for over 3 years. In addition to building engines for our high end Drag Racing, Truck Pulling, and Alcohol customers, he travels throughout the country to various races and events to provide technical assistance to our racers. If you don't catch him at a race track or a trade show he can be reached by telephone OR email at adam@steveschmidtracing.com

Roberto Bergeron is one of our engine assemblers and is shown here doing a final assembly on one of our 565 engines. Roberto has worked for us assembling engines for over 10 years.

This is part of our custom engine block department. Dave Amburgey is boring a block for .904 lifter bushings, on the left. Marc Shisler, on the right, is boring a cam tunnel for roller cam bearings. Both David and Marc have worked for Steve Schmidt Competition Engines for over 20 years.

This photo shows our tear-down department. Lonnie (Junior) Donathan takes every engine apart that comes to our shop. He inspects all components and evaluates what needs to be done. Junior has worked with Steve since High school and have been a valued employee for over 23 years. Junior may have the most important job at Steve Schmidt Competition Engines as he has to identify a lot of problems and convey them to our machinist and engine builders.

We do a varity of custom machining operations. If you can think it up, we can make it or machine it. This photo shows Marc Shisler working on a head for a competition eliminator project.

Marc Shisler is shown here preparing a block for cam tunnel boring.

This picture shows our cylinder head porting room. We have 3 cylinder head porters full time.

Lee Latozke is shown porting a set of DRCE II heads. Lee is one of our cylinder head specialist and head porter. Lee has a vast knowledge of head porting and has worked on about every kind of cylinder head imaginable. He also does a lot of prototype work and head flow development.

Jimm Butkiewicz, one of our cylinder head experts is modifying one of our cnc head programs for a custom application. Jimm has worked for Steve Schmidt Competition Engines for 18 years. He has been instrumental in our head program as far as working with Steve Schmidt on Pro Stock cylinder head development and has worked on head that has set over 60 national records in Competition Eliminator.

Mark Shisler is shown here preparing the valve guides on a stack of 12° Schmidt Pro-Filer heads.

In this picture Lee Latozke is shown working with a set of DRCE II heads. Lee is one of our cylinder head specialist and head porter. Lee has a vast knowledge of Racing Cylinder Head preparation.

Jeff Bull is shown doing a competition valve job on our Rottler SGF8. Jeff is a member of our competition cylinder heads development team. Steve Schmidt Racing Cylinder Heads are top of the line utilizing the best components available and Cylinder Head preparation that is second to none.

Jeff Bull working on one of our proven race winning Cylinder Heads. Steve Schmidt Racing Cylinder Heads are available in many winning combinations. Call us today at 1-800-957-7223 for more information.

Darin Morrison shown working on our Sunnen Valve Grinding Machine.

Our shipping department. This photo shows a new 760 Commander getting ready for shipment to Florida.

Dave Broyles is the primary man involved with most the dyno work. He also installs all of the nitrous systems on our engines.

Mike Hazelett has worked with Steve Schmidt on racing engines since 1970. Mike hones every Pro Stock block that is worked on in our shop. Mike also races in NHRA Comp Eliminator and won the Division 3 Fall Classic in 2005 in Comp Eliminator. This hone is used for Pro Stock engines only and Mike is the only one that uses the hone. Mike is also Steve's best friend! (sorry for his luck!)

John Johnson works in the machine shop and does our racing crankshaft balancing.

Another shot of Greg Walford and Brad Cain working on cylinder heads.

Greg Walford is shown here assembling a over-head cam cylinder head for one of our many automotive customers.

Dave Leonard, on the left, has ran our parts department on th automotive side for 16 years.

Brad Cain is shown here setting up an over-head cam cylinder head to bore the cam saddles for new cam bearings.

This photo shows our clean-up department where all blocks and heads are cleaned and prepared for machining and final wash. We also have an oven and shot peening process for old blocks to make them look like new.

Mark Schmidt shown glass beading an intake manifold, getting it ready to port and polish.

Roger has been with Steve for 16 years, and has been grinding crankshafts for 25 years. He does all the crankshaft work for Steve's Pro Stock engines as well as all the automotive crankshafts for the auto repair shop. We are able to index, and equalize, as well as move the stroke on crankshafts to adjust the stroke. We can also weld cranks, and magnaflux cranks to check for cracks.

Phil Love is one of our knowledgeble Sales Representatives.