Responding to myself.
I learned in the past couple of months that, nope, nobody's going to be impressed by a simple "Expert Builder"-era V8.
So I decided to take it up a notch.
I have the complete circa-1987 Dacta TC robotics kit / 9700 Control Center (part of my demo for this weekend at ToyCon). Sometime this summer I will attach the kit's counter wheel and optical sensor to the axle emerging from the rear of the motor. With that I can quasi-scientifically measure the V8 speed in any unit I like -- miles per hour, feet per second, or whatever. I also plan to program a joystick (again, this is using a 1980s eight-bit Apple II computer) to work as a gas pedal. Rather than just being binary on/off, the V8 will acceleration linearly as you move the joystick handle from bottom to top.
Maybe that'll earn me some LUG newbie cred.