well i'm not sure if you guys have maxima's down there, but in my white stanza, i swapped the internals and torque convertor into the stanza, and it held alright. before that, i had a new tranny(stanza spec.) in for 20K miles, and then after 4k of nitrous, it began to leak out gaskets, and slip. with the maxima tranny(from VG 3liter motor) i guess the tranny was built to take more power, so it held up much better. i just added an oil cooler(vs the radiator cooling), and it ran like a champ. but... when it comes to putting power to the floor, a manual will spank an auto any day. 150hp in an auto will = 160 in a manual.
i perfer a manual, it's more fun