The chassis on a 'vert is a lot less rigid. If you are planning a true hi-po setup you need significant chassis reinforcements. When I had a stock chassis and "only" ~400rwho is would walk sideways under hard acceleration. You could see the car flex. Welded KB SFC's and a 6-point weld-in bar solved that.

Rich

 

Automatics seem to be the fastest cars in the 1/4 mile mister symbol. But stock for stock, the manual will win (driving helps too). The manuals eat around 15% of the horsepower through the drivetrain, and automatics eat up more. The thing that makes automatics faster, is when they're modded. Take a stock LS1 Z28, put drag radials on, and a good stall converter on and they have been known to lift the front tires off the ground by an inch or so. If you want to know more about stall converters, look it up on www.howstuffworks.com