[asphaltgambler]

WOW^^^^^^^^^^^^ that really makes me sad^^^^

In 1983 I started working for a small auto repair shop in Fairfax, Va that was owned by 2 brothers that owned and managed a very successful machine shop 4 doors down. One brother had another shop in Maryland both under the name "Kenson Machine Shop". They did everything you could imagine, including race engines of every type, performance street engines, basic, etc.

They had built or did extensive machine work on racing engines that ended up on the cover of Hot Rod and Car Craft as well as dozens of other rags back then. There was no one better, than those guys, brilliant engineering minds as well as the 4 machinists that worked for them.

Through those guys and their customers, I received a Master's Degree in engine performance building, machining, finding free hp and torque through blue-printing, rod and stroke ratio's, on and on.

Their head machinist left later ('88 or so) to start his own machine shop out of his home garage. Then as things progress, the daily bread and butter work began drying up as times were changing. As more specialized engine builders came about, so then their complete builds dry up. In the mid 1990's they closed the machine shop in Maryland, not enough business to keep that afloat anymore. I think the last thing they did for me was in the late 90's, removed some material off of the base of a couple Sportster cylinders to achieve "0" deck. I heard they ultimately closed by 2005 or so, I believe both owners were of retirement age by that time. Sad, really as it's hard to watch a successful business, good people just wither away...………..