I want to rebuild a 1993 Geo Prism (Toyota Corolla)

My father passed away a while back and I inherited a '93 Geo Prizm when he passed. Right before he died he got into an accident that broke the right passenger door (window won't roll up or down) and dented the right front fender. Aside from that the car has 61K miles on it and is in pretty good condition.

I've been driving it for a few months now, mostly for sentimental reasons, but I'm really growing to like the car and am leaning toward really redoing it top to bottom -- engine with more HP, new interior, maybe even a sunroof -- sound system, alarm, etc. Most of this I'm competent to handle myself, but I'm at a loss about the engine -- are there aftermarket engines that can be dropped into this guy that'll pick it up? It's a 1.6 liter 5-speed automatic right now, and it's zippy enough unless I've got my kids in the back seat -- I drove 5 people in it the other day and going uphill was an adventure.

Any suggestions on engine replacements would be really appreciated. Websites, companies that do the work, etc. Any Toyota Corolla/Geo Prizm enthusiast sites, if there are any, I'd appreciate pointers to.

Sorry to hear about your loss.

Finally! A question I can answer. That engine is most likely the 4A-FE engine (or 4A-GE). Fortunately, you can drop any 4A block into that car with no problems. The F in FE designates an economy head whereas a G denotes performance. (The E denotes EFI.) If you really wanna up the HP, drop in a

4A-GZE -- that's a supercharged engine found in the earlier MR2's. Those are all 1.6L engines. For 1.8L, you can drop in a 7A-FE with little difficulty.

I'm actually working on getting a Toyota Levin front-clip with the JDM

4A-GZE (good for 165HP stock) in my '90 Corolla -- the perfect sleeper!

There are tons of Toyota enthusiast sites. Google's directory is a good start:

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Good Luck,

Tim