I haven't investigated if a 5-speed will fit in the tunnel.. all of this info is from talking with Isuzu off-road people who have done various engine/transmission swaps and know which parts are compatible with what.

However with nearly every other vehicle I've seen the Automatics take up quite a bit more space than 5-speeds, so I'm not to worried about that.

Not to mention Manufacturers typically build their chassis to handle either, even if they never plan to release one or the other, if trends take a sharp turn tomorrow and they discover that automatics kill kittens and everyone wants a stick shift, they want to make sure they don't have to re-engineer the whole thing

I kind of really want to do this now, but I wont be able to do any of this until next spring at the earliest. If all goes well it would only take a weekend to do, if something goes horribly wrong it could take months though and I'll need my VX for the winter (not to mention I've got other projects on my plate right now). I might take this on sooner if it had already been done by someone else... but as they say "the pioneers get the arrows, the settlers get the land" I don't mind being a pioneer, but I can't afford any arrows right now

I was just really interested in the feasibility so I started researching and thought it would be nice to share my results. :gring: