Well, starting, with the cams you "won", which by the way, where did you win them???? Any way, you will need the skunk2 valve springs, retainers, and more than like in addition to cam gears, may also need some injectors. Those cams are very radical, and to work sufficiently wil require substacially higher compression then stock. I'd say something closer to 12:1. They will also require a nice header, test pipe or high flow cat, and free flowing exhaust to breath properly.

As far as switching to OBD1, if he had a 98 GSR, likely to not, he switched to OBD1 and gained 11whp becuase he had the ECU chipped, though he may say it's stock, or even think it, chances are if he got it off line, it was chipped, unless of course he is running a vafc or something like that, and thats where he got the additional hp, is from tunning. Running the the 00-01' ITR cams, or CTR, both the same, requires a little more timing, a little more fuel, and unless he chipped it, the older GSR and the newer all had very similar ECU program wether OBD1 or 2, and not likely to make up an 11whp difference.

Any way, if you want to put a P28 ECU in your car, keep in mind that you need an obd2 -> obd1 jumper harness/conversion, in addition to having it chipped, as it won't work stock. If you decide to do a P72 or P06 or something along those lines you will also need it chipped as it was not meant to run correctly in your car and will have all the wrong fuel and Vtec maps. Also, most places that chip ECUs will allow you to set a custom rev limiter as well as a custom Vtec engaugement point. In the case of rev limiter, I would put in no higher than 9600 for a daily driven car, and as for Vtec, in order not to have a huge dip into vtec, you may want to move it up to about 6300 or so, maybe even a little higher. Realistically, I would invest in a Hondata or something like that as per your budget will allow it, as those cams are a little out of the ordinary, you'll have some issues getting them to run well on a standardized ECU rom program such as the Mugen chip for example.

As far as your friends GSR, I wouldn't waste the money on CTR cams again, I tried them out prior to finding out they were the same as my 01' ITR cams, soon after dynoing the exact same numbers, give or take a couple tenths due to the valve adjustment, I was kinda teed off, but I guess, live and learn. Any way, the 95 was not the best year, in fact from 94-96 they were identical, in 97 they switched it up a little as far as computer goes, but other wise nothing, then in 98 they changed the front and rear facia. Other than that, until 00' everything stayed the same from top to bottom, then until they discontinued it on 01' it was exactly the same. On the whole, 94-97 they made very few changes if any, and then 98-01' they also didn't change a lot. I was more body styling than anything. Any way, good luck with your car, and seriously consider selling those cams for some less aggresive ones, that will require less modification to what sounds like an almost stock R. I'd look into some skunk2 stage 1 or something like that, that wont require a huge investment or a lot of peripheral parts.

Later,
Aj