Sorry for being late into the 'party'. Been having a good chinese new year holiday.
Anyway, I think the others have already explained the main difference between the Stream's K20A and the DC5R's K20A. Basically, the more significant differences are :
1. Stream K20A has VTEC on only the intake. DC5R has it on both. The camshafts, valve size, etc are of course different too.
2. Stream K20A intake mainfold is dual runner design. DC5R intake manifold is short length runners, intended for maximum airflow at high rpms (contrast this with the regular Accord's K20A which is also single runners but longer lengths, for better midrange power).
3. The ECU will be different as well, obviously. Another important factor is while I am not sure about the HongKong editions, the ones here (Malaysia) have ECU based immoboliser systems which prevents the swap of ECU without re-programming with the ignition key.
The above are very rough generalisations of course. There are a lot more detailed differences which either I do not know the detail (as in the exact difference) or are too involved to mention.
If you want to squeeze a bit more power out of the Stream's K20A, from 155ps to maybe say 170-180ps, I would say the best bet would be to modify the Stream K20A as the base. From what I read about Hondata's effort into the 160ps Civic Si (which uses a K20A as well), the Hondata reprogrammed K20A ECU can liberate as much as 10-15ps AT THE WHEELS from the engine. So you might want to consider a Hondata ECU upgrade (which involves sending you ECU over to the US for re-programming due to the complexities with the immoboliser system - assuming it's there) or you might want to install an aftermarket piggy back computer like e-Manage or HKS FCON-5 and then MUST Dyno-tune it for best results. I think if you can retuned the engine's fuel and ignition timing and move the redline a bit further up (6800rpm for a Honda DOHC iVTEC engine is to be honest quite embarassing ! :) 7300-7500rpm should be quite good enough) I think quite a bit more power can be liberated. Of course air-filter, exhaust, headers are assumed to be a given.
One thing to bear in mind is that the Stream's K20A is tuned to run with RON91 petrol (gas, fuel, whatever people calls it in their part of the world). This means the engine is way de-tuned and also the ignition timing is very conservative. I think HongKong in general should have pretty good petrol, given that even Malaysia has RON97 petrol. So I think you can go quite 'wild' with fuel/ignition tuning with pretty good results.
While I will not condone it, the controversial mod of removing the cat should also recover quite a bit of power too. I think the Stream should have 2 cats so if you do want to remove the cat, I really hope you will remove only 1. Alternatively, swap a high-flow cat in, getting the ones used by the DC5R which is spec'ed to flow enough for 220ps should give you both good emissions and good power capability.
I also fully agree that you should focus on the other areas of the car (van) too. To me, the area I focus most on is the braking system. For my own Integra, I gladly sacrifice increased wear (of the brake rotors), noise, horrendous brake dust that can't be removed even by scraping or with petrol, and other things just for the sake of fantastic braking (I use a racing compound brake pad by HKS). So my opinion is you should upgrade the brakes first before touching the engine. Brake hoses, high-spec DOT4 brake fluid (assuming your Stream has ABS), upgraded rotors and very grippy brake pads should be the first to be done in my opinion.
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