The performance shown in the graphs as well as in the bar chart is the LATEST DESIGNS's car performance from that team, which does NOT mean that the parts fitted in the car are the last ones designed. Drops in performance will most likely be because of WEIGHT.
If you want to see the performance of EVERY CAR with exactly their FITTED PARTS, click on the icon.
With the difficulty modifier enabled, you will stop seeing drops in performance and there will be less variability in the development of the cars.
The OVERALL stat is an approximation of the car's performance, it can't be determined with 100% accuracy, and it's calculated based on the other selectable car attributes.
Please take into consideration that if you make a specific default engine not be used by any team, when selecting it again as an engine supplier, its stats will be the same as other default engine, not its original ones.
Creating a custom engine will NOT CREATE a new one in-game, it will just apply the stats that you assign the custom engine to the engines that the teams who run the custom engine use.