Let's begin...
The heads are the same on the 16 and 20 ve. The cams are different. One set of cams is made for the longer stroke the other set of cams is made for the shorter stroke.
This will shock you, but you are absolutely right with this one, and you should of stop there, instead of insisting the VE was design from the beginning to be a 1.6
One set of cams makes more power than the other no matter which motor you put them on. But why? Why is one set of cams more agressive than the other? Maybe because you can take better advantage of the piston dwell time on one motor more so than the other. And maybe the reason why people run adj cam gears is because you are trying to dial that out on a 20VE.
Dial what out? The Devil? Make no sense. People use adjustable cam gears to tune. Every engine is different due to manufacturing differences/tolerances. It obvious the SR16 cams can make more power, because they are bigger in lift and duration on the big cam. If you haven’t realized yet, the SR16 revs higher and make peak power at 7800. The stock SR20VE make peak power at 7,000. Look at what happen when you pop on the 20V cams on the SR20VE. Wow magic, it makes more power. It makes the most low to mid range power of all the factory cams. Simple reason why is because the low cams are the largest in the factory line.
I am not sure who has made an SAE corrected 230whp on a standard dynojet. But i have seen back to back dynojet/dynapack and saw 231 dwindle to i believe 204 or something like that.
Read again, I said 230
hp. Damn you’re demanding, how about 230 whp sae dynopack?
Let's talk intakes.
Stock intake is the same on both 16 and 20ve. As i said above the air flow between a short and long stroke motor is completely different. BUT take the 20ve head, add 16ve cams on a stock intake behold you are making more power. The intake manifold is not a bottle neck on either the 16 or 20ve. Considering how radically different the timing, cams, stroke etc are it's pretty clear that it takes more to optimize for the 16ve and 8200rpm than a 7500rpm 20ve.
You are stating the obvious, yes the SR16 and SR20VE are different. Hell, they are different in displacement, therefore requiring different timing, cams, crankshaft, pistons, rods.
Now for timing.
This is easy we know which has more agressive timing and why (well i hope you know why since we just discussed the difference between the long and short stroke motor). It's funny that you can run more timing safely on 1 motor and then take that same map and apply it to the 20ve and MAKE MORE POWER. Wow it seems like the VE loves timing...I wonder why? Maybe because it was designed to be more detonation resistant than the DE? Hmmmm sounds like the 16ve is the target here too.
What? Both the Sr20VE and SR16 share the same combustion chamber so they are more detonation resistant than the DE. Again, you fail to realize both factory engines were meant to make peak power at different rpm range, SR16 7800, SR20VE 7000. For the SR20VE guys with bolt ons, and wanting to rev past 7,000rpm, the SR16 ignition map works because it has more timing higher up in the rpm range. So what? Down low the SR20VE ignition has more timing so it better down low. Even on the SR16 there are three different ignition map. The N1 itself has two versions.
The SR16 ignition is no where near optimum for my engine, yours, or for any other SR20VE. It's the best if people don't want to tune themselves.
Finally, and possibly most importantly and something no one ever talks about
Transmission
What is a CVT transmission designed to do? Considering the limitations placed on the 20VE from the timing, transmission, cams etc it's very clear that the VE motor is most clearly a 16VE first 20VE compromised.
What? I don’t see the logic or connection.
As for your personal stuff, I don't care. I just want a "technical" discussion.
I still have not seen any evident the VE was designed to be a 1600cc engine. You are just stating the obvious.
I don't think nissan design the 53j block back in the mid-80's just so they can come out with the SR16 in the late 90's for a three years production run.