Chiseled Performances’ Robert Rojas Is Giving New Life To Lost Build

Rob Cossack
•
June 21, 2012

This build started off at Stenod Performance for customer Steve Dertien way back in 2005, but family and children came first and the car was listed for sale last year. Current owner Robert Rojas saw it on Yellow Bullet, as he had been following the build on Stenod’s website, but he wound up losing that sale by a few seconds. Rojas was having an engine done by Steve Morris Engines and had been on the lookout for a good roller for several months. When the car came back on the market a few months later he jumped at the chance and brought the car home to Miami, Florida.

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The car is a 2002 Trans Am with a 25.2 double frame rail chassis from Stenod Performance, as previously mentioned. The massive 47-inch carbon tubs make room for most tires and were sourced from Cynergy Composites with the carbon seats coming from Tim McAmis Race Cars. The front clip, doors, roof and dash are from Hairy Glass with the hood and rear bumper from Jon Van Overbeek -- none of which is mounted yet. (Photos courtesy Stenod Performance and Robert Rojas).

Rojas has been in business since 2005 with Chiseled Performance, specializing in intercoolers, trans-coolers, and water and fuel tanks. He got started after buying a TIG welder, making a water tank and posting it up for sale in a forum. The rest is history and now Chiseled Performance supplies many well known shops and racers such as NRC Motorsports, Part Time Performance, J & E Performance, Craig Pio, Kevin Fiscus, the Bruder brothers and many other top Outlaw 10.5 and Drag Radial racers.

Underneath is a fabricated 9-inch housing with 40-spline axles and internals from Strange Engineering, featuring an Ultra 9.5 case and dual calipers. Santuff shocks reside in the back with Strange spindle mount GT struts and brakes on the front. Weld ‘V’ series wheels reside on all four corners with Mickey Thompson rubber mounted up. The car will be set up to run Outlaw 10.5 and Limited Street and may see tires from 33X10.5W’s to TT5 x 29.5’s or the 315 MT Drag Radial.
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A 598-inch big block Chevy from Steve Morris Engines will be fed by twin Garrett 91mm turbos tuned up by Reed at Work Turbochargers. The fabricated intake was done by Jared Thomsen, who, along with Steve Morris, has been helping on the build. Brian Brown from Quicktime Motorsports will be handling on-track tuning and also has been consulting on the build.
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These two shots show the 4-link and trunk area and more of the double rail chassis construction. )Photos courtesy Stenod Performance).

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