Ford does have a V8 diesel, the "Powerstroke" engine. It is actually built by International Harvester, also brand named Navistar. It is a good engine with serious torque and longevity. It is also heavy. There are performance parts for it, mostly in the way of chips for the EFI and intake systems.
The problem is weight. They are heavy. The weight of diesels is not such an issue in performance race boats, but it really gets to be a problem in race cars where folks will spend huge amount of money to just get a few dozen kilos off the weight of a car. It is more efficient than increasing horsepower and has the same effect, as we all know.
If I were looking at this and trying to find small, relatively light high-performance diesel power, I would look at Yanmar. Their marine diesels are lighter than anyones, and they wind them up pretty tight. Their only V8 is mammoth- about 900hp, which means over 4000 lbs, and huge. In other words, the weight of two GT40s. Some of their smaller engines, though, might fit and work.
I think that the USA lags way behind the rest of the world in small high-performance diesel technology for cars. None of the really good ones are built in the USA. We do well on marine engines (Cummins, CAT, Detroit/MTU) but the good diesel tech in cars is from Germany and Japan. I think there is a Yanmar web site showing their small marine diesels with weights etc.