You are completely indecisive over what you wanna do, and your mind is clearly headed in the direction of a new motor as opposed to tearing this one apart and doing it right. It's a honda motor. At 187K it's just breaking in. Sure, it needs a little love and attention...but honda motors are notorious for last forever. Hell, my d15b2 rolled 281K miles last december. The ONLY reason I swapped was because I wanted more power...but I even kept that motor cuz it was just such a damn good motor.

If you're scared to do the work, just save up for the swap...but if you wanna grow a pair and dive into it and gain some knowledge and experience along the way, grab yourself a helms manual and dig in... Either way you look at it it's gonna put you out of a car for a little bit. As for that crap building up on the back of your car, use some Simple Green from walmart. It's a hardcore cleaner, and will get that **** as clean as humanly possible... But wax it after cuz it will even take off your wax...

As for my B-series motor that I use now...it builds black on the back of my car...so I'm fixing that problem with a full overhaul, and prepping the bottom end for some power adders down the road. ACL bearings, Honda OEM rings, Honda OEM water and oil pump, and OEM Timing belt, and getting the ***** honed. Once I gather money down the road the head will get ripped off and rebuilt. P&P, valve job, shaved/decked, and all new seals on a thing head gasket. Nothing big...but it'll give me just a little more compression (about .9:1cr, if I remember right?) Not to mention, practically a new motor when it's said and done...