Teach me about first gens please

[Stillctfletcher]

I just got a 1990 lx for $350.. Its an automatic unfortunately, and it's pretty ghetto. Po spray painted the whole thing black and didn't take time to mask anything and left runs everywhere, I have took the majority of the spray paint off using a pressie washer and oven cleaner, but the blue paint underneath is in pretty poor shape, so I think I'm going to have a coworker shoot it with single stage in the next month or two, I'll post pics once I figure it out... I have a couple questions I'm hoping someone can answer.. How bad are these automatics? Mine seems fine for the most part but it shifts a little hard compared to other cars I'm used to driving (they may just be a lot more modern is why)... I need this automatic to last me a few months. Also I'm looking at doing a manual swap, then I saw the jdm 1.5 liter 1st gen bp engines with 5 speed and ecu on ebay... How similar are these jdm engines to my 1.8? Bolt in? Ecu plug and play? What axels would I need? I've tried searching but just may not know the correct terminology.

[FE3-323]

start with flushing the transmission and putting new fluid into it. that should help most shifting problems.
how many miles are on it.

[Stillctfletcher]

It's got 200k nearly.. I'm afraid of I do a drain and fill it might make shifting problems worse on a high mileage car is that the case? Or should it be alright?

[me109]

Maybe don't change the filter. It should be happy with some new fluid.