L78 rebuild

[Joe69BB]

Hi All,
I am a new member but an old car guy LOL. I am going to rebuild my orignal L78 engine in my 1969 Nova SS. The car is very orignal with the complete original drive train that has a colunm shift turbo 400 and 3:55 gears.
I want to try and keep the value of the car at the market level or more going forward, based on how this engine should be rebuilt to accomplish this. The engine has never been rebuilt before but can use it to preserve it.

Having said that should I rebuild this engine to exact Chevy factory specs knowing that the gas here in Ca. is nothing to get excited about octane wise, or for the sake of the engine itself, rebuild it with lesser compression pistons but with a cam that could still deliver as much HP as I can obtain? I have no problem in adding an octane booster as required as I do for my '68 435 HP Vette rebuilt to complete factory specs. I will probably sell the car when finished to purchase an L78 4 speed Nova or 69 Camaro.

I do intend to have the car as an occasional cruiser and not beat on it in any way but I like some decent HP when I want it. Any thoughts and suggestions would be deeply appreciated.
Thank you,
Joe