what makes you think they didn't thouroughly engineer the first accord V6? of course they had to make the nose/engine bay larger to fit the engine in - what else were they supposed to do? what jaje is saying still makes sense: they have no V8 or larger in a production car, and never have. so they aren't just going to rush one out and stuff it into the RL. whereas the engine in the accord V6 had essentially been in use for nearly a decade by the time it was introduced (1995).