All things being equal, bigger engines make bigger power. Yeah you can take a small engine and make good power with it. You can even make really impressive numbers with turbos, superchargers and NOS (for a litttle while anyway).

If you plan to run against a car of about equal weight with more engine the following may come in handy:

"Missed a shift"
"timing's off"
"couldn't get traction"
"Got a tank of bad gas"
"It needs tuned"
"Tranny's slipping"
"Did you say go?"
"well, I THOUGHT I was fast"