>Another point of contention is that long rod engines don't
>really have much of an advantage in dwell time, and lose the
>advantage of peak angle when it counts.
>
>The short rod engine puts the unit force vector closer to the
>perpendicular to the crank at an earlier point then a long rod
>engine. For example, in this simple drawing (MS Paint OWNS!):
>
>

This picture does a very good job depicting side load.
Look at the rod angle compared to the cilinder wall at 90 for both engines.