[NISFAN]

Originally Posted by swamp2

Marketing absolutely does not decide which technical approach will be implemented or how a particular approach will be used to reach a top level product design goal. Engine engineers and designers are far far too clever and knowledgeable to be swayed by poor use of jargon by end users. Brand new engines are again $100M or hundereds of millions of dollars. Folks don't screw around with poor jargon or a misunderstanding of a very fine technical details with this kind of money at a company of this size..

The point is, engineers are told what to do. (Surely if you believe engineers arrive at the ultimate solution, then an S66 would be the new M3 engine provided the S66 is a better package engineering wise? which you insist is the case?)
You are the exact example of what gets fed back to engineers, you don't like that delay in throttle reponse in ANY rev range. (By the way that delay, isn't an engine response delay, just boosted engine response delay). So now engineers have to add that second and third turbo, and limit overall rpm range all to appease some guy who doesn't get Turbo engines. Very very sad indeed.

Originally Posted by swamp2

But they appear in significantly different end products right?

Nope not at all, all the examples I have given are available in the same body styles. In fact the Toyota Supra you wouldn't know whether it had the Turbo or NA engine from the outside, by all accounts exactly the same car. For your info the stats for the two are:

Normally Aspirated (2JZ-GE) 220hp 210lb.ft
Turbo charged (2JZ-GTE) 320hp 315lb.ft

No doubt you would plump for the NA version as it has NO LAG?

Originally Posted by swamp2

Don't state as fact if you won't discuss. I'd love to see the proof, not some BS gossip from a magazine...

This is not magazine gossip, well it was, but was from an interview with a top director, and his answer quoted verbatim. I can't be bothered to look up the text, but he cited crash preformance as the killer of inline 6 engines. It is only now that pedestrian crash performance has meant longer noses anyway, that we are getting back to having a decent crumple zone capable of housing an I6.

Originally Posted by swamp2

All I am saying is that an I6 is inherently less expensive than a similar V8. I have also shown how simple economy of scale makes high volume parts and systems less expensive than low volume ones. In this case, for BMW M, the I6 is the least expensive option, mostly due to economy of scale. I would also bet that at the same volume an I6 would be less expensive than a V6. There are other advantages of a V6 in terms of compactness that for some purposes may make that a necessity. The I6 physically may not fit.

OK, so it is cheaper to make an inline 6. Don't think anyone disputes that.

So what is exactly your point? That more expensive engines are somehow better?