New LS1 Owners - Newbie Tech - LQ9, Worth it?

I have a chance to purchase an LQ9 and was wondering if it's worth the price difference between that and an LQ4?

Future plans:
Phase I

78 Nova (stripped)
Carb'd (not for sure 750 or 850)
Cam (still researching this one)
Headers (which I dont know of a place selling headers for these engines for a Nova)
TH350 (dont know what it takes to connect the two)
9" rear end (can a guy get away with just a mini spool?)
3500 stall (still not sure on this either)

If I'm figuring this right, that should put me into the low 12's

Thank you for any and all advice!!!

No not really. If your gonna do anything serious with the motor your gonna replace the bottem end anyway, if not then you probably dont care enough for it to bother you. The only difference is the cam and pistons. The compression is lower on the Lq4 but you probably wont see much of a difference. Just my .02

Plan on leaving the bottom end alone for a long time.
Just thought I would throw that out there as well.

Get the LQ9 then, with a set of 243 or 799 heads youll have 10.9:1. I ran 12.8 on a stone stock LQ9 with 799 heads with the puny stock cam (196/207 .479/.467 116-1).

I had a stock intake and exhuast manifold and all in my 3500lb truck.

Are those head numbers stock castings or aftermarket?

Just did some more research and this engine is a 2002 out of an escalade. Is there a big difference between these heads and L92's.

Yes they are a lot different than L92s, youll have 317s on that engine. The 243 and 799 are basically the same head with a smaller combustion chamber, for more compression.

The L92 heads are a completly different animal and take a different intake manifold. They flow more becasue the intake port is about 260cc with a 2.160" valve. The stock 317s only have a 210ish cc intake port with a 2.00" valve.

The L92s will swap on to your LQ9 no problem. I swapped to a set of CNC L92 on my LQ9 not to long ago.