well i suppose i will try and answer some of your questoins. any one else that has input please give it.

personally i like my koni yellow shocks and neuspeed race springs. stiff around turns and its externally adjustable so it makes life easy if you want to change on the fly. alot of people have oppinions about what set up to use, i would talk to people you know with hondas and see what they say. im not running sway bars yet so i dont know for sure what is great but i hear that the civic type r bar works pretty well.

wheel size depends on model, most of them are 15". people run sizes from 13 inch with slicks to 19" with street tires (i think thats a bit large but to each his own). You probably want to stay close to stock size, im running 16" with 205/40/16 toyo proxis4 and i havent lost traction running around the canyons except in the rain.

Brake kits from what ive read dont really do much. i would say get a set of brembo blanks, maybe slotted, and a set of good quality pads.

Im in So Cal also so i know the pain of the carb laws. you can do an engine swap of the same generation and it can be BARD but i dont know alot about that. there are people here that have gotten it done so maybe they will input somthing. they make carb exempt CAI's and im pretty sure they make headers that are carb exempt as well if you dont relocate the cat. 120-150HP is a pretty reasonable estimate for just bolt ons, but it depends on the motor and the bolt ons.

im just putting in my ideas so if anyone else has anything add it.