I dunno about you guys.. for me the cams feels very differentlah.. Although there's also rumours about the auto cams being more 'powerful'. From my personal experience.. auto cams very low power output, both on low and high end. Mid-range.. so-so lah.
I think if retaining stock exhaust system, it doesn't matter if it's an auto cam or manual cam, since it will perform roughly the same.. but with upgraded exhaust systems.. I think probably the manual cam is better.
But still, I haven't yet feel an auto cam B16A (with manual g/box) that feels anywhere remotely fast. Of course, even a B16A, B16B and B18C feels slow to me, so maybe I set my standards a bit too far.. :P