I am with @desertdudeon this issue. I have built all sorts of engines in my time- from screaming chainsaw engines that needed massive turbos to get up to speed, to my favorites, the LS series engines that effortlessly deliver massive amounts of power at barely above idle RPM's. In my opinion and experience, there is nothing to beat the effortless power of a well-built and tuned V8, and in fact, some of the screaming chainsaws I've built used considerably more fuel at high engine speeds than almost any LS I've built running at any engine speed.
In practice, there are only two ways for any small-displacement engine to make more power- one is to add more fuel, and the other is to make hugely expensive modifications and then to add even more fuel to make the mods work. Both scenarios affect reliability in the worst possible way.
By way of contrast, no modern V8 engine needs major modifications to bring about significant power increases. While most LS engines can be heavily modified, these sorts of mods are almost always done for serious competition applications, which mere mortals like us can't afford to engage in anyway. Therefore, a few simple programming tweaks and maybe an exhaust mod are usually enough to make a modern V8 outperform almost any screaming chainsaw engine in almost any vulgar street racer, while using less fuel than the smaller engine, to boot.
And yes, I still hate cars, and not everything is about speed.