Last year Chrysler pulled back the sheets on the all-new Dodge Dart, a new compact car injected with Italian flair and American performance, or at least that’s what we were told. In truth, even the top-tier turbo engine is mightily outgunned by both old competitors and new challengers, like the Volkswagen Golf GTI and Ford Focus ST. Suffice to say, the Dart is heavily outgunned, and often overlooked.

So what is the solution? According to AllPar, Chrysler engineers are considering something of a complex, and unexpected fix; shoehorning the excellent Pentastar V6 engine under the hood of the Dart. More likely than not, it can be done…but should it?

Currently the most-powerful engine in the Dart lineup is the 2.4 liter “Tigershark” with just 184 horsepower and 171 ft-lbs of torque, which is adequete, but hardly exciting. Rumor has it that Chrysler is considering a downsized version of the 3.6 liter Pentastar V6 as a horsepower bandaid as it were, though just which engine remains the question.

The most likely choice is either the 3.0 liter V6 designed for use overseas (where displacement restrictions heavily tax engines over a certain size), or the 3.2 liter engine found in the new Jeep Cherokee. While the 3.0 liter engine only makes 230 horsepower and 210 ft-lbs of torque, the 3.2 liter version offers 271 horsepower and 239 ft-lbs of torque, a big step up from the Dart’s current offerings. Alas, it still won’t fix the Dart’s primary problem, that pesky front-wheel drive.

Now it’s just a matter of, you know, fitting a six-cylinder engine into a car only meant for four.