I've always been in to domestic muscle and trucks so i've been curious lately on things i could do to my girlfriends 97 Special Edition 2.2 non vtech. visually, body kits, lights, ect, are pretty self explanatory, (been there before with s10's and such) but when it comes to the engine and upgrades\mods available i'm pretty lost. her car is pushing close to 300k miles so i've pondered on maybe a complete engine swap or maybe a complete rebuild. i've read slightly about swaps for vtech's from preludes and such. i'd really like to turn this car into something amazing for her but don't want to go all looks and no power so can anyone give me some suggestions on what i could do to put some "bite" underneath the hood?

 

h22 swap or if you have deep pockets a k24 swap

 

H22 swap is the most common, its the engine out of the Prelude. It makes 200hp. The stock engine(F22) loves boost, but with 300k on it a rebuild would be a good idea first.