Pier 57 Taps TNT/MPG to Handle Engine Building Services

Just a few blocks from the new Pier 57 Marine facility in Gurnee, Ill., noted auto racing engine builder TNT/MPG Race Engines will be handling all of the new and pre-owned high-performance powerboat dealer’s engine building, rebuilding and major engine service business. (As a certified Mercury Racing service center, Pier 57 will continue to offer basic service work for under-warranty Mercury Racing engines.) That’s the word from Scott Sjogren, the owner of Pier 57 Marine.

TNT/MPG has everything it needs, including its own dyno, to handle Pier 57’s engine builidng, rebuilding and major engine service needs.

“Part of our new facility is a 5,000-square-foot service center with five 45-foot-long service bays,” Sjogren explained. “We know that service is a big part of our future—people are already restoring and rehabbing their existing boats—but we are not an engine builder or rebuilder. From an in-house perspective, we can swap out engines and provide rigging services and we can completely dress out and rig engine compartments. But we are not in the engine-building and rebuilding business, and we don’t want to be.

“That’s where our partnership with TNT/MPG as our engine builder comes in,” Sjogren continued. “We are growing and we need to align ourselves with an engine shop that can grow with us and has the technology to handle the types of engine products we deal with every day. TNT/MPG is well known in the auto-racing world and has some of the most sophisticated machinery, as well as its own dynamometer, available. They can build new engines and handle engine rebuilds, valve jobs and everything else in house. There is nothing they can’t do.”

Tom Olsen, the 31-year-old owner of TNT/MPG said he is delighted to team up with Pier 57. He also said his company, which has been in its current location for seven years, is ready to handle “100 percent” of the dealership’s major engine building and rebuilding work.

“I am definitely looking forward to it,” Olsen said. “We have all of our own CNC machine equipment, and all of our CNC work on each engine is done in one setting—in one machine—so that all machining can be accomplished without moving the engine. Anytime you move the engine from one CNC machine to another, you increase the possibility for inaccuracy. We do all our work in house—there’s nothing we send out.”

While Olsen said his company’s primary experience has been in building auto-racing engines, he is confident that experience has him and his team well prepared for building high-performance powerboat engines.

“For drag racing, we might make an engine that has to produce 3,000 hp for five minutes over its entire lifetime,” said Olsen. “For boats, we might have to build one that produces 1,000 hp for 300 hours. Both present challenges, but both are totally doable.”

TNT/MPG has a complete machine shop with state-of-the-art CNC equipment.

Editor’s Note: The new website for TNT/MPG is currently under construction. Additional information on the company is available through Pier 57.