After having 2 previously, a brief stint in an M135i and then an EP3 Type R, I decided that I had unfinished business with Baguettes. I decided that I wanted a cheaper car, with light options, as things like Recaros would be being ripped out anyway, and as it's not a daily I could do without some of the creature comforts like climate control, auto lights/wipers and so on. I also didn't want black or white, as I'd had them already, and wanted something different. I was looking at almost anything, from modified examples to bone stock examples. Man maths also dictated I was looking at 275 Trophy's too. After much deliberation I settled on this. It's a 2010(59) Extreme Blue 250 Cup. One of 17 Cups in EB, and even rarer with the DRL option and keyless. So this has a very light smattering of options. Mainly being Keyless entry, RS Monitor, and the LED DRL's. Other than that, there's nothing! This is it how I saw it. After speaking to the dealer, and coming to a deal the trip from Bristol to Scunthorpe was made. I was presented with this when I got there. It was beautifully stock, and owned previously by a bloke in his 60's! He'd never floored it before, which was made clear by the amount of soot and shite coming out of the exhaust when I first floored it on the test drive! Thankfully, after a couple of pulls this cleared up. During the drive home it became apparent the thermostat had failed, so that, and 7l of coolant was ordered from the local dealer. The thermostat was removed, and then water was pumped through with the hosepipe to clear as much out as possible until the water coming out the other side ran clear. The new thermostat was then refitted and bled the system up. This resolved the issue, and also benefit from a full coolant flush. I had a lot planned for this. before anything I wanted a solid base to work from, and the fact it had it's belts, clutch, decent S/H and everything worked was what drew me to this car, as well as the colour. The plan was to build a clubsport type car. The first thing I was going to do was de-orange the headlights. This helped brighten the headlights up greatly and imo takes years off a car. This made it much better and isn't so bright it makes you look like a dickhead with Xenon bulbs in the wrong car. By this point the car was filthy from the drive from Scunthorpe to Bristol. Therefore a proper clean was in order. It was then debadged at the rear. I bought an ebay special splitter, which started dropping after 2 days, so this was pulled back off and binned. Then I went across the bridge into Wales to meet up with a few mates and go for a drive up the black mountains. The headlights needed de-chroming. Split, painted the inserts, resealed and replaced them onto the car, making it look like this. Some tasty wheels were then bought. OZ Ultraleggera, 18x8 ET48 in perfect Megane fitment, and then fitted Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2's in 245/40/18. After putting in a massive amount of overtime at work, and with the inaugural track day quickly looming I decided to treat the Megane a little bit. Consisting of: BC Racing BR Coilovers, with 10f/7r springs. PMS Rear camber shims. PMS Stud conversion. HEL Braided lines. PF Z rated front pads. EBC Yellowstuff rear pads. Motul RBF600 Brakes fluid. Mid-box Chop. I didn't want to go pissing around with the brakes and coilovers myself so I had Cooksport fit and setup the car. After getting it all fitted up, I went for a drive for an initial shakedown of the car. I also fitted a Trophy gearknob too, the same as I've had on all of my previous Meganes. So it was ready for the trackday. It performed faultlessly all day. Spent all day worrying faster cars, and having great fun pushing the limits of the car, fully utilising the coilovers, brakes and tyres. It felt mega, and the braking force was something else! I literally felt like you were hitting a wall. I particularly like this picture, as you can just about see it starting to lift the inside wheel where I was starting to really push the car. Following the trackday, I cleaned the car and gave it a thorough check over, and changed the oil+filter as a preventative maintenance, and by this time the car had done 3k road miles with me and the trackday, it made sense to swap it out. It made sense to use decent oil, as I had a lot of track action coming up soon. The Motul was on offer, so I decided it was easier to order that, and use a filter I had at home already. However, the car then developed an intermittent fault where changing gear it would bog down heavily and lose all boost for a second then come back. With Forge action day looming quickly I decided that as the car had 87k on it, the fuel filter likely hadn't been changed, and the spark plugs hadn't been changed in a while, looking at the S/H. So there were changed too. They were fucked, essentially. during the check over I found a slight oil weep from the breather pipe. I took it off, cleaned all around it, swapped the pipe around and tightened it up which resolved the issue. You can just seen behind it the KTR blanking plate. This was fitted around April along with an ITG Maxogen induction kit. This means the car, with the midbox chop is somewhat loud on boost now! It was then Forge action day. Great day. did 2 track sessions, one in the morning at 09:30 and one at 13:00. The car performed really well, did itself proud. The first 6 minutes of this is my session in the morning, and can see the car going round. I do have a couple of photos of the afternoon session too. The car was brilliant. The brakes started to struggle a little come the end and go a bit loong but overall it did really well. I'm pleased. 3 weeks later, it was a day at Curburough Sprint Course. The car was brilliant fun. I went last year with my old 250 and managed a 1:30 in the dry on Federal 595 RSR's. This time I was back with better brakes, tyres, coilovers and a better track knowledge. The day started off damp in places, mainly the hairpin, meaning there was a big loss of time there. Even so, I managed a 1:32 in the damp, which I was pleased with. In the morning I started pushing a little too soon, and lost the backend on the chicane, and I had to straight line off the first half of it onto the straight! No harm done though. As it was raining and I was unable to chase my original time, I decided to start pissing around, skidding the car and said main hairpin. This was mega fun, and I managed to get the car into huge slides by trail braking into the corner and recover it by planting the throttle, straighten the wheels and let the diff and power straighten the car. It was awesome. That's pretty much up to how it is at the moment. It's currently sat looking quite sorry for itself as it hasn't been cleaned in over a month, due to work stuff. I do have some more plans for this, but they're now the big stuff, like power, seats and so on. So; Next up is bucket seats, I'm going to be getting Recaro Pole Position ABE's with sliding runners for the car. Not sure where from yet or when, but hopefully over winter I'll get this done. I properly suck at updating these, so if you'd rather, follow me on insta; @jakeblue250
I've tried Yokohama AD08R and Federal 595 RS-R's. The Yokos were good, Federals not that great as they would understeer at 30mph. The Cup 2's are as good as the AD08R's on the road, but much, much better on track. The Cup 2's are a different level of tyre. Next are Direzza's, Yoko AO48's.
