Again, I do appreciate these responses even if the questions seem critical. Just for the record, rescinding my down payment is not on the table just because I’m asking these questions.
Despite my confidence that there were good reasons for the choices made on how/why these engines are built the way they are, I wouldn’t sleep well at night not knowing what these reasons were. I am also anticipating a risk to my pride when my friends start asking questions about my new engine and I have to shrug my shoulders. :) I just like to know these things and I know I’m not alone in that.
As for the answer, it doesn’t completely help me understand but it’s also not fair to expect that you would have any insight in engineering decisions made by auto manufacturers. I got ahead of myself with the “Tier 1” thing which doesn’t mean exactly what I thought it did in this context.
Anyway, I guess I was hoping for some explanation about the forces applied to crank shafts and why one application would require x and another gets by just fine with y. In any case, I believe your conclusion and you obviously don’t owe me any answer at all…so thanks.