No Replacement for Displacement (myth or fact)

My belief follows the air pump theory, but some food for thought is the velocity of which you move the air. Sure a 440 moves more air than a 273, but which one moves it faster? I'm a big fan of RPM big bore, short stroke, long rod, short compression height, making for something you can twist the sh** out of. Use the gearing for torque multiplication. If you build horsepower the torque is going to come with it, I was taught to focus more on power than torque unless you're building a tow pig engine. I'm not arguing the fact that there is more potential for big power in a big engine, but personally I like screaming by at 5500 rpm mountain motor at 8500 in a small mill. Sure you have to be a better engineer to do it, and the masses will snicker at you, but who cares? Build what your budget allows, don't worry about what other people think, read and research, go to a national event and talk to the stock/super stock guys and see what they're doing. I feel that the masses flock to popular belief and get sucked into the magazine articles and power block episodes, that's fun an entertaining, but how many of us on fabo have an unlimited budget? Find a good machinist, not one that quit learning 40 years ago and pick his brain. I say build the 273, give it a healthy dose of compression, work the heads, talk to a professional porter and build them for terminal velocity, healthy cam with a narrow lobe separation, aggressive ramps, open the valves faster, hold them open longer, open the exhaust valve before the intake valve fully closes, that'll make it scavenge, get it in and out fast, and squeeze the crap out of it while its there, and it will scream. It might have some street manners depending on your opinion of street manners. Visit www.samracing.com there are some links to magazine articles that one of the instructors did, many of which were done while I was enrolled there. Read them over and maybe that'll shine some light.