ORIGINAL: 1971Chall
Actually, it's ECOBOOST, my mistake. I have a couple of big inch muscle cars and I do enjoy them(including my '71). Again, displacement is a power adder also. It all depends on what approach you are going to use. With the new CAFE rules it will be difficult(or impossible) to make a large engine and get it to comply with MPG rules. Turbo or supercharging is one way to still get performance and some mpg. I like the N/A stuff also, just looking at from another perspective. I will still be picking up a Challenger regardless. :-)
That's right, I forgot about that nameplate. The other reason why I view larger displacement as a more respectable route is it provides a lot more peak potential. I can't remember who did it, but one of the magazines took modified Vettes, Vipers, and GTs against each other and the Vipers produced a whole lot more than any of the rest of them. Although there still is modification room left after a car has been supercharged or turbocharged, it certainly limits how much more you can get out of the engine since it already is depending on that blower.
I'm not sure if I completely agree that forced air-induction is going to be all that better than displacement when it comes to fuel economy. If you look at the high performance turbo I4s, they really don't get any better fuel economy than V6s that produce similar hp. The same is true between turbo V6s and V8s. Part of the reason why is you need to provide these engines with shorter gearing to let them wind up faster to get the full effect of the boosting. Just look for example about the Crossfire, it got about 22mpg on the highway on the SRT-6 version. GM has been able to get 26-27mpg with the Corvette automatics that has just under double the displacement. The fact of the matter is that when you increase displacement and up the power, you can make the gearing taller and normally get better fuel mileage.
The idea to use GDI is a great plan. It will improve both fuel economy and power. The use of multi-displacement systems is also a great route for improving fuel economy now that technology can successfully implement it. Using forced air-induction I'm afraid has too many drawbacks and probably never will replace larger displacement engines unless something dramatically changes that makes it more practical. The other thing is forced air induction has been tried so many times now to replace larger engines and each time it never does. I just don't see that ever happening under the current circumstances, but I appreciate an outside perspective. Thanks for bringing it up.