it would only bend the rod a little.
There is a power advantage having less offset to the pin.
I don't know if Mark has any 970 pistons about but if he has and measures the offset, I'm sure there will be little or none at all when compaired to a standard 736 K piston.
The YB921360/1 race kit pistons for the CB92R have little or no offset compaired to the CB92. When one considers that the complete race kit only adds 1bhp to the 15.5bhp motor, It's anyones guess how much power the difference in the offset makes.
It has been known for people to have pistons made with the offset the other way round in their search for more power. How much noise and wear this creates dose not matter as the components in race motors are changed from race to race. Look how long a top fuel drag motor lasts, 4.5 seconds?
In single cylinder and multi inline motors, the offset is allways towards the inlet side other than in a motor that spins backward through a counter shaft.
Motors in a V formation have the offsets both ways for obvious reasons.
Sam.