I've got a 96 Prelude S. 2.2L SOHC Automatic (79k miles). I would love to do an engine swap with a 2.2L DOHC VTEC. However, all cars that are VTEC by stock have manual transmissions.

Now, what I wanna know is... can the VTEC be used with an automatic, of course that wouldn't be great, but will it work ok?

Or am I looking at a whole engine/tranmission swap from F22/auto to H22/manual? (Any ballparks on price would be nice if ya know it)

If the VTEC upgrade is just too much of a pain or not possible, what would be the next step down that would get good performance upgrades? Turbo kit?