Joseph
Suchyta

Warrior Racing FSAE, engine systems

Engine Systems Lead, September 2024 to May 2026. Each part below was packaged in the car, drawn, fabricated, and run at competition.

Fuel tank

Sheet aluminum, 0.050″ · packaged behind the driver between cockpit and firewall

• Right-sized the tank from 5.6 L to 4 L, an 8% margin over the 3.676 L used in Endurance 2026, while meeting fueling requirements under all operating conditions.
• Cut mass from 1,200 g to 726 g with thinner-gauge aluminum (0.050″ vs 0.063″) and folded, tabbed sheet-metal construction.
• Internal trap doors and baffles keep fuel at the pump. Validated fuel pressure with as little as 0.2 L remaining.

40%lighter

4 Lcapacity

0.2 Lvalidated minimum

Dry-sump oil reservoir

3.5 L capacity · TIG-welded aluminum

• Tangential inlet swirls returning oil around the wall to passively de-aerate it before it reaches the engine.
• Shortened baffling lets oil drain to the bottom faster, fixing the back-up seen in earlier designs; internal baffles separate droplets from vented air so the catch can stays dry.
• Sized to keep the engine from running low on pressure. Pressure never dropped below 45 psi during Endurance.

45 psiminimum in Endurance

3.5 Loil capacity

CBR600RR dry-sump oil pan

Designed for 5-axis CNC · welded bottom plate closes the pressure path

• Two scavenge outlets so oil is always pulled into the pump under hard cornering and braking, when a single pickup uncovers.
• Improved weld joint and thicker floor over the previous year's design, eliminating the cracking seen when lifting the engine in and out of the car.
• Complex geometry designed around the machining process rather than fixed after the fact.

Gear position sensor and machining fixture

Bracket, actuator shaft, and seals · plus the jig used to machine the case

• Custom bracket mounts an actuator shaft to the stock shift drum; a hall-effect sensor tracks gear position for the driver and the ECU.
• Enables closed-loop shifting at 50 ms, 100 ms faster than the prior year, improving acceleration and autocross times.
• Sealed with an X-ring on the rotating shaft and a square-cut ring on the face to prevent oil leaks.
• Designed and built a fixture to hold the irregular engine case rigidly on the mill, with a bolt-on datum bracket for zeroing. Three cases machined in one setup, all usable, to 0.01″.

50 msshift time

0.01″fixture tolerance

Personal vehicle projects

Parts designed for a 2015 Ford Focus ST, from cardboard mockup to daily use.

Intercooler air duct

Siemens NX · printed on a Blackbelt belt-type 3D printer

• Captured the front-end packaging space with a cardboard mockup, measured it, and modeled the duct in NX to route air from the lower grille to the intercooler around existing structure.
• Installed on the car. Charge-air temperatures dropped by about 3 degrees, bringing them to near ambient.

Active rear wing with control integration

NX airfoil · Ansys Fluent CFD · Arduino control

• Modeled the airfoil in NX and optimized it for ease of manufacturing; simulated downforce and drag in Ansys Fluent.
• Wing laid up in carbon-fiber composite; all mounts laser-cut and bent from aluminum.
• An Arduino reads the brake-light circuit and GPS speed and drives two linear actuators through a DC motor driver.

Chassis-mounted front splitter and mounts

Composite splitter · adapter bracket developed with Professional Awesome Racing

• Worked with the supplier to design an adapter bracket that lets their quick-release mounts carry a chassis-mounted splitter on the Focus ST, so it installs and removes quickly.
• Composite construction keeps the splitter light while supporting more than 500 lb of downforce.
• On the car: better stability at highway speed and a measurable fuel-economy gain.

Teaching

Four years as a teaching assistant in Wayne State's engineering design courses, most recently teaching Siemens NX and HyperMesh to graduate students.

BE1200 ball valve exam

Designed the parts, drawings, and BOM for the introductory CAD course final

• Students read the 2D drawings, rebuilt each part in NX, and produced their own drawings, covering every skill from the semester.
• Printed the full assembly so students could handle the real parts during the exam.
• Taught 60+ graduate students NX constraints, motion simulation, and FEA, and led HyperMesh labs on meshing, boundary conditions, and interpreting results.

Education

Tools and skills

Comfortable moving between the model, the analysis, and the shop floor.

Experience

Contact

Happy to talk through any of these projects in more detail.