the main thing about the auto trans for B-series is the lack of torque multiplication - theres only 4 forward gears instead of 5, and the final drive and those 4 gears are longer than those offered in the manual transmissions - even compared to the LS transmission. there are other issues like space constraints (design limits the size of torque converter, planetary gear sets, etc) which also further exacerbate the lack of "performance" that automatic b-series trans has. but like its been said already, there are options out there that prove otherwise (Level 10).

with the lack of relative torque that the b-series puts out, they need all the help they can get via torque multiplication. this is why the typeR transmissions and their variants (namely B16) have such numerically high (short) gears, along with higher final drives. if someone were to make a manual B-series transmission with the same final drive and same gear ratios in 4 gears as the ones in the automatic, i bet that car wouldnt accelerate that well either.

with the narrow powerband of the vtec/ls-vtec NA setups, the long 4 gears tend to ALWAYS drop the rpms out of the vtec powerband.

ok thats it. please no more auto vs manual talk.