We decided that we would start out by getting a good base line feel for the car. We had autocrossed it twice before, but that was before we lowered the rear. It used to be raised above stock.
For this event we lowered the rear, and bolted on our worn/free 205/50-15 Toyo RA1 tires. We are running KYB GR2 shocks on the front and KYB gas adjust on the rear. Those were the only changes we have made. We did not want to start changing things until we knew what the car did bad, or good. In short we expected to get spanked.
We will be running against a 1983 GTI and a 1986 Scirocco. Both of these cars ran within a few 10ths of each other last year. Both seem like great guys, so it should be a lot of fun!
Because of timing issues we were held to 3 runs each, so I pushed the car harder the first run than I would normally. On the first run we beat the GTI by .2 sec. (the Scirocco was no show) After the 2nd and 3rd run we had 1.5 sec on the GTI giving the Ghia her first EP win. I wont know how we did overall until the results come out this week, but we were about 5 sec of FTD. Not great, but we have not really done anything to the car yet. We will keep you all posted.
As for the car:
Well, it was great. I never had to "catch" it so I know I was not running as fast as I could. Turn in was good, it had plenty of brake, and the car felt very neutral on course. So for now we leave it alone until we find where it will missbehave.
On the downside (if it really is one) we had lots of body roll and carried the inside front through all the tight turns. The car did bite well off the corner which was something we had problem with in the first two autocrosses we attended.
But enough of that how about some pics??
