sometimes that craved power can be psychologically attained. case in point:
...my 94...I wanted it all...I wanted the power of a muscle car and the sound of a well-tuned race car.
It had a 98 Mustang tranny with JMOD and 26k gvr trans cooler, mach 1 TC, and exhaust was done with simple dynomax bullets...it sounded fast, ran high 14's in the 1/4 mile and got 28 mpg easily not to mention those firm shifts
it was lowered, had a thicker rear sway bar, tint and a mean sound system...those little "itches" I needed scratched would happen on:
freeway onramps,
wide-open stretches of road,
curvy back roads
I'd feed the loud pedal at times and drag raced it from time to time.
I never felt I needed "more power" all the time.
I just fed the cravings.
if I could have changed one thing, I would have added gears. I even bought a FRPP 3.73 trac-loc unit, but sold it shortly there-after without ever installing it.
start small...add some nice mufflers...if it sounds fast, it feels "faster"...I had less than $1500 in "mods" from end to end and believe me, I drove it ALL THE TIME and washed/waxed it on average, 2 times a week(black on black)
start small, scratch one itch at a time and then you may realize, the intake, headers, turbos, super-chargers, gears, etc...may not be all that important.
Nothing hurts more than spending $$$ and not getting the real-world results you anticipated.
Here's my 175k mile, daily-driven 94 Mark VIII. Bought it at 51k miles...It had "show", it had "Go" and it had given me plenty of reasons to be more than satisfied...I obviously took care of it, but it was the best handling, best sounding, best looking car I ever owned.
with the right roads, and the right song playing loud enough to tickle your spine but just quiet enough to hear the throaty sound at 4500 rpms, you may just find your happy place and still have enough coin left to fix that Dakota because lord knows it'll ask for WAY more $$$ than your Mark VIII ever will.