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The 3400 has plenty of advantages compared to the 2.4.
To start, it has more horsepower. You're complaining about how much the mods cost, but think about how much of that little bit of money here & there you'd have to spend to get an LD9 up to 170 HP at the crank. Subtract that from the price of 3400 headers, and it's not so bad.
Also, the 3400 has splayed valves for intake/exhaust. This lets the intake and exhaust air flow have a clearer path straight at the valves so that flow is increased. This actually gives you more power, and airflow increasing mods like a cam or rockers get you much better results than what you'd have with straight ports. Straight ports like the ones on an LD9, 350, 3800, etc. don't let the air as efficiently flow at the valves and into/out of the combustion chambers.
With a 60º V-design, the 3400 sounds great! The 2.4 sounds like a 4-cylinder engine, which it is, but I don't like the sound. A 60º V6 or a V8 sound fantastic, and you can run them without a resonator and enjoy a nice exhaust note without much rasp.
Downsides are the iron block, so some weight, and that the engine bay appears to be so cramped that those tiny manifolds are used. Otherwise, the 3400 is a solid engine that's generally easy to mod and is more powerful out of the gate.
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