Some of the less obvious things that we build into our projects are the memories that are formed in the midst of milestones, engineering challenges, and busted knuckles. Justin Arias came from a family of racers, as you would expect, being the grandson of Nick Arias, the founder of Arias Pistons and later Arias Performance Engines.
Justin borrowed money from his grandfather to purchase this El Camino in 2014 with the intention of building the car with him. He figured it would be a great way for them to bridge the generation gap in a way they both enjoyed. As with many projects, the needs of family life and daily concerns soon overcame the hope of bright chrome and banging gears.
Justin’s grandfather founded Arias Pistons and later Arias Performance Engines, which used hemispherical heads of their own design. Justin’s El Camino uses a set of LS-based Hemi heads as a tribute to him. (Images: Four Speed Films, YouTube)
Sadly, Justin’s grandfather passed away on January 2, 2017, and as you can guess, Justin was devastated. “I didn’t even want to look at it,” he says. The car languished on a property in Beaumont, California, for a few years until Justin started working on the car again as a form of therapy after a recent divorce. But, instead of building memories with his grandfather, Justin decided to build the car as a tribute to the man who invested so much into him, his family, and the automotive realm.
Building The Hemi Head LS El Camino
One of Nick Arias’ famous quotes was, “It takes a Hemi to beat a Hemi!” and that’s exactly what he did. Anyone who has had the pleasure of laying eyes on an Arias Performance engine quickly notes the massive Arias hemispherical heads atop the block. Many folks don’t know that Arias was a Chevy guy at heart and used that same hemispherical technology for those LS-based engines as well. You could say that Justin’s ‘Camino is an LS-swap, but since it was going to be a tribute to Nick, there was only one set of heads that would do the project justice.
The heads were designed by Nick to mate onto an LQ9 LS engine, a 6.0-liter Gen-III small block engine used in GM trucks between 2002 and 2007. In Justin’s case, the heads were to be the star of the engine compartment, so when it came time to source a block, he went to the folks at World Products for one of their cast-iron Motown/LS small-block castings. The Motown/LS block features all the goodness of the LS-based intake tract with the bolt-in…
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