not to rain on your parade but the 429 ford engines (boss hemi, and cobra jets were all 60's engines)

so was the 426 dodge (they made a few different engines with 426ci just fyi, you had the max wedge the hemi, yada yada) 440 magnum was also a 60's engine.


now with that said pinto's/mustang II/bobcat/chevette are all light weight rwd cars... not hard to make them fast with a engine swap, not much different than other economy cars with crappy low hp engines people swap out for more powerful and superior set ups.