I am crew and part-time driver of an ITA 91 Escort GT. My friend Dave owns the car and we just completed our first enduro at Watkins Glenn (3 hours). The car has 101K and the engine is original. The exhaust has been done to ITA specs and it has an open element air filter all the rest of the mods are suspension work, coil overs, sway bars, camber plates, tires rims.
Right now we are mid pack runners... with a proper ITA engine rebuild, more time spent testing and tuning the suspension, alignment and driver experience I think we could run closer to the top of the ITA pack. For some reason that defies me we can outrun Miatas in a straight line, most will eventually get us on the corners.
Having said that I think the acuras and hondas in ITa will be difficult to beat, I don't know if the drivers are that much better or they just cheat but those car are fast.
If I had my choice of a Ford car to built to ITA specs I would do an Escort ZX2 S/R model (rear disc brakes). Same suspension as our car but better aero, slightly larger engine and still a cheap car to work on. Problem is a nice version still demands more money then I am willing to spend on a car I'm going to strip down.

Frank McGovern
41 ITA Escort GT (co-driver)