Keep reading about the Chevy journals and H rods for VW motors, I'm guessing these are just generally bigger and beefier?
It's just the size. Something to do with when people started customising our engines some chevvy parts could be made to fit.
Chevy parts are not necessarily bigger or beefier; they can be used when changing the rod ratio and/or when you’ve offset ground the crank journals for a longer stroke. In very general terms a shorter rod reduces the rod ratio and the engine will produce more torque at low revs – but there are disadvantages…
The chevy big end journals are smaller diameter than a vw rod so it gives more clearance (or less needs removing from the case) when using a stroker crank. H rods are just stiffer than the I beam ones.
It's just stuff from the days of 70s tweaking in the US. Presumably Chevy stuff was all they could get. Nothing special about the parts.
