,
The Invo, in order to be engineered to have a decent ride has by nature a softer sidewall than the reinforced sidewall and bead filled NT05. The ride is noticeably better than the NT05 but surprisingly by no means is the Invo a sloppy, sluggishly responding tire. Due to the longer wearing high silica tread compound the Invo has a UTQG wear rating of 220 vs the 140 of the NT05 we were running. Hopefully this translates into a much longer daily driving tread life on this heavy powerful car. Amazingly when driving the Invo, we did not feel like the Invo was giving a lot up to the NT05. Perhaps the difference might only be 2-3 seconds a lap on the track. We were impressed at what a good compromise tire this is giving up very little on the performance side of things for the big gains in practical daily driving use. If it seems like we are gushing about the Invo, we are even more impressed by the Motivo which might be the best all season tire we have driven to date!
We double checked our alignment at Westend to make sure all was good. Our car was set at 1.75 degrees negative with zero front toe in the front and 1.4 degrees negative in the rear with 1/8″ toe in. This setting should give pretty good tire wear in daily driving.
The Invo is nearly 20mm wider for the same rated tire size when compared to the NT05. This meant that our once perfect fitment was now rubbing pretty bad, especially in the rear. Brian Kono of Afterhours Automotive cut our inner fender flange down to give us 1/4″ of clearance which is plenty even when deflection under cornering load is considered. To preserve the factory corrosion resistance, Brian resealed the fender to quarter panel seam with structural epoxy adhesive to prevent water from entering the seam.
In the front the inner plastic fender liner had to be heated and bent out of the way to prevent annoying rubbing. Our car actually ended up looking better with just a tire change and a MotoIQ project car is actually flush enough to make some show guys envious without rubbing even when driven hard!With new tires and an inadvertently flusher fitment, our IS-F looks better, rides smoother, has better wet grip and is quieter with only a small loss in all out dry grip. The IS-F is a great high performance daily driver sedan and the Nitto Invo to date seems like a very good match for our intended end use.
Sources
Mackin Industries (Volk Wheels, Project Mu)
