Originally Posted by MrFatbooty
As for you guys bringing up the inability to stick a V8 in a car that mounts the engine transversely, it's no big deal. GM's been making fwd V8 cars for a long time. They're not awd, but Volvo has a transversely mounted V8 (made by Yamaha) in the XC90 SUV, which is built on the S80 sedan platform. It's a V8 that's specially designed to save space, with a similarly space-efficient transmission. If Volvo and Yamaha can pull it off, then Honda could too. It's not a matter of not being able to, but it would be a pretty big investment and be rather out of step with the Honda corporate culture which tends to be very focused on efficient designs. Honda needs to realize that a luxury car is about being excessive, and even if most people don't buy the V8, it provides a halo effect for the V6 because people think of the whole model range and know that it includes a V8.
But not with this current frame. The point I was making is that with the current RL design, there's no way to jam a transverse V8 in there with the AWD gearbox splitter dealie. So, any improvement in engine size is going to have to wait for the next redesign. Given the current frame design then, I think it makes sense for Acura to try to lessen the price by removing some of the features so that people will actually by it. It's a short term stopgap until the next redesign comes around.