With the automotive aftermarket industry averaging 4 percent year-to-year growth lately, contract machining shops are finding that aftermarket components can be a lucrative niche.

      Such is the case for Service Tool in Little Rock, Ark., a company that now focuses specifically on producing a throttle body spacer that enhances power, torque and fuel efficiency.  The 16-year-old company began producing the patented aluminum spacer in 1996 and has never looked back, de-emphasizing other miscellaneous small-batch contract work so that it can concentrate on producing upwards of 2000 of the throttle body components per week.

      The spacers, sold under the name Poweraid TBS and Aircell, have a unique set of helix bores that cause a spinning action of the incoming air-charge as it passes through the throttle body. Needless to say, the spacers became popular with the performance crowd.  But today, fuel economy is the primary selling proposition, especially for the heavy-duty truck market.  Law enforcement departments and other fleet operators are saving on gas expenditures with the product also.

Business is brisk

      “We’re running 120 different part numbers for the throttle body spacer, to accommodate a full range of engines and vehicles,” says Larry Patterson, president, Service Tool. “The first spacers were for our own trucks, then the word got out and now there are well over 800,000 of them in the field. The market for the product is still growing. New applications include non-automotive uses such as irrigation pumps.” 

      The machining workhorse of choice is the MAG Fadal VMC 4020 (vertical machining center), and the company operates five of them. The Fadal machines are responsible for holding tight tolerances on the helix bore. Accurate circular interpolation, including the...

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