Getting into Civics and have questions

[TCR1]

I searched the site quite a bit, but am getting overwhelmed with the information.

I am currently looking at purchasing a 1993 Civic hatch with the 1.5L engine. It is currently an automatic.
Since I am currently in school as well as working full time, I plan to use the vehicle as a commuter for the next couple of years. However, I would eventually like ot build it up to do some SCCA type stuff, where handling and lower end power is helpful for getting into and out of corners (or at least I think it would be helpful as that is also new to me).

I realize most would prefer a manual transmission, and I would swap to that if it is reccomended that I also do an engine swap in the future.

So here are my list of questions:
What kind of low end power can I get out of the stock 1.5 liter engine anfd how would it be achieved?
How stable/reliable are the Honda automatic transmissions?
What would it entail to swap to a manual keeping the same engine?
Would it be beter to do the swap and tranny at the same time as opposed to just doing a tranny?
I looked at hmotorsonline and saw they offer a variety of differnt engines and also something called a long block? Not real sure what a long block is? Also some included trannys and some didn't. There is a B18C on there that says "complete change over" and one that says long block. What does that mean exactly? I see a lot of people recommending the engine 9b18C) and given the pricepoint relative to the K20A, that is probably the way I would go.
Also, what do the different year "specs." mean when buying the engines...do the ecus come preprogrammed to match up with the current year of vehicle (remember, the one I am looking at is a 1993)?

I realize that a lot of this stuff seems basic, but i think my vocabulary just isn't up to speed. I would probably feel a lot more comfortable working on the car than researching the possibilities.

Thanks for any help or direction you can provide a new member. Heck, since I don't own the car yet, you mayt as well recommend saying steer clear and look for "X" instead to save some time/effort/money in the future.

 

[civicSIcoupe]

So here are my list of questions:
What kind of low end power can I get out of the stock 1.5 liter engine anfd how would it be achieved?
How stable/reliable are the Honda automatic transmissions?
What would it entail to swap to a manual keeping the same engine?
Would it be beter to do the swap and tranny at the same time as opposed to just doing a tranny?
I looked at hmotorsonline and saw they offer a variety of differnt engines and also something called a long block? Not real sure what a long block is? Also some included trannys and some didn't. There is a B18C on there that says "complete change over" and one that says long block. What does that mean exactly? I see a lot of people recommending the engine 9b18C) and given the pricepoint relative to the K20A, that is probably the way I would go.
Also, what do the different year "specs." mean when buying the engines...do the ecus come preprogrammed to match up with the current year of vehicle (remember, the one I am looking at is a 1993)?

I realize that a lot of this stuff seems basic, but i think my vocabulary just isn't up to speed. I would probably feel a lot more comfortable working on the car than researching the possibilities.

Thanks for any help or direction you can provide a new member. Heck, since I don't own the car yet, you mayt as well recommend saying steer clear and look for "X" instead to save some time/effort/money in the future.

if your going to do an auto to manual swap, you might as well do the engine swap at the same time IMO to save yourself some hassle..

you can boost and rebuild your 1.5 to push some decent power, but you will need a standard tranny because the auto wont be able to handle it. also for a full swap you get engine, tranny, axles, ecu, wiring harness, alternator, shift linkage, etc etc, pretty much everything you need for the swap. also the year specs is relevant to the ecu style, your car is a 93 so it would have obd1 not ob2 (either way you need to change and chip then tune the ecu for a motor swap)