What should I do?

I recently bought this 1990 Civic that my friend used to own. My knowledge on cars and working on them is limited but I'm slowly learning. It's a 4-speed with 160k+ miles and currently doesn't run. When it did run it ran well enough. There was knocking when it was cold and on rare occasions it did smoke. But now it doesn't run at all. About a month ago it started stalling on me while driving down the road. I opened up and and saw that each time it was driven the spark plugs would be soaked in oil. It did it so often that it can't be driven anymore. But the car has set for a while now and when I try to start it the engine sounds like it's heaving. I'd say it takes about a second or two for each turnover.

The car has no rust. Only a few scratches and dents. My friend swapped dashboards out of a CRX if I remember correctly. I believe it has potential and I'd like to get it running again because I really enjoyed driving it. Over time I was hoping to put in a different transmission, new sound system, etc.

For now I'm just looking to get it running so I can drive it to work and around town. Should I get the engine rebuilt, or get a different one altogether?

http://i202.photobucket.com/albums/aa64/Kerbouchard87/P1000240.jpg

i have no idea, but hope you can drive you baby soon...

i have no idea, but hope you can drive your baby soon...

i since you said that on rare ocassions it smoked, i don't think it's the head gasket...i would say that mabey you need to get a valve cover gasket set to keep the oil from getting to the sparkplugs...
http://i14.ebayimg.com/01/i/000/f4/21/548c_1.JPG