Recently, I had an opportunity to spend a day with "Mr. Horsepower" Nick Arias Jr., while covering a tech article pertaining to an Arias engine he built some time ago. Nick Arias is a man of genius when it comes to innovation, concept, design, pattern-making, development, and manufacturing of complete engines that produce nothing but mega horsepower.
Nick started building hot-rod engines during his early teenage years. He began working for Wayne Manufacturing, where he learned about engines, cylinder heads, combustion chamber, and piston design. During the '50s, Lake Mirage and Bonneville Salt Flats were like speed-freak magnets, where young men braved their dreams of land speed records. This was where Nick learned about straining engines past their parameters, and in doing so, he was known to bend a few.
Nick Arias Jr. is known for his innovation of designing and building horsepower as a privateer; more than some of the domestic manufacturers. The Arias hemispherical aluminum cylinder heads, blocks, and pistons are unique and produce mega horsepower and torque.
Nick opened Arias Piston Manufacturing in 1969. If you wanted to go fast, you ran Arias pistons in your engine. Known for its very high-tensile strength billet aluminum, it was meltdown-proof. Nick was and still is today very meticulous, and he pays close attention to design and detail of all his Arias engine internal components. Arias custom-made pistons are continuously being analyzed and improved, which makes them some of the best manufactured pistons on the planet.
When Chrysler was dominating racing back in the '60s and '70s, you would think Chevrolet would have stepped up and challenged Chrysler and Ford. Nick had all the answers from his big cylinder head design, along with engine block and camshaft relocation to minimize valve train harmonics. These changes would have taken Chevrolet to the next level and raised the bar of domestic manufacturers power wars.
Instead, Arias went boat racing and it seamed a lot of performance engine builders were getting into battling it out, either on the liquid quarter-mile or offshore racing. The Arias engines were producing more than 890 hp. If you weren't running an Arias engine, you were just another weekend warrior.
Arias power! Mike Boyd muscles the "Winged Express" fuel altered during another unique burnout at the '08 50th Anniversary March Meet at Famoso Raceway. The famed AA fuel-altered, "Winged Express" was piloted by the late Wild Willie Borsch in match races across America during the '60s, '70s, and '80s. Willie passed away in 1991, but car owner Al "Mousie" Marcellus and Mike Boyd still campaign the Winged Express making wild 1/8-mile burnouts and full throttle 1/4-mile passes.
Nick figured if his Chevy Hemispherical engine was fast on water, it would be fast on land. That's when he teamed up with the Over The Hill Gang drag-racing team, and his engines drew instant attention with the drag-racing crowd. His engines also did very well in the pro-stock division with Bob Glidden.
Currently Nick Arias Jr. and his good friends, Fred Blanchard and Steve Montrelli, are all back into the performance engine building business with Nick's new Arias Performance engine, which was built for the street-rod and muscle-car guys.
Also, for you '70s funny-car fans, Danny Pisano and the guys at Arias teamed up and have built a replicated Pisano & Matsubara Revell vega that will be campaigned during the newly formed NHRA Hot Rod Heritage Racing Series.
The engine I was interested in was an Arias engine combination Nick introduced to the boat drag racing and tractor pulling competitors a couple of years ago. One of these engines was purchased by Dan Dowdy, who shoehorned it between his '37 Hudson Terraplane pickup, which was featured in Truckin' volume 33, No. 8.
We caught up with Dan and his Arias two-stage nitrous-assisted 540ci BDS 1071 supercharged engine, as he was getting it dialed in and dynotested at Dyno Motive in yorba Linda, California.
Thanks again, Nick, for lunch.