Are you hearing any clicks/rattles on startup or that persist afterwards? I am not familiar with the GDI spark advance behavior between the 2 banks, but I see lots of places where a difference of > 1 degree is noted, sometimes several degrees, but mostly for very brief periods. So at this point, I am thinking timing issue involvement, whether it be a VCT solenoid or cam phaser. Or it could be a simple result of different airflow feeding the 2 banks, still looking at that possibility.