Was the VehiCROSS offered with a manual transmission?
Was the VehiCROSS offered with a manual transmission?
no
VX KAT
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Sue is right but two of our members successfully swapped to manual transmissions. I took VT Maverick's VX for a quick spin earlier this year and it drove great. I'm planning to swap transmissions myself... just need to buy another car because I use the VX as a daily driver and the swap will take a while.
5-speed links.
http://www.vehicross.info/forums/sho...l+transmission
http://www.vehicross.info/forums/sho...t=manual+trans
The answer is technically yes, they did come with standard shift. Five were built at the factory that way to be used in the Dakar Rally Raid. If you look at the VX parts manual you will see provisions shown for manual shifters. That's the story.
I have both US and Japan EPCs and there's no manual transmission mentioned there.
I'm pretty sure the transmission was swapped by Isuzu Motorsports after cars left factory. If you look at Dakar's VXs they have totally modified from stock.
http://photo.qip.ru/users/uncle-asa/...#mainImageLink
2001 Isuzu VehiCROSS (build in progress): 4JX1/A340/part time, 2" body lift, front Aisin hubs, rear Aussie Locker, 4.56 gears, OEM rear sway bar disconnect, AirFlow snorkel, cabin air filter
1980 Jeep Cherokee (assembling): 1.5" body lift, TBI, HEI
1987 AMC Eagle: stock
Pages from the original VX parts catalog that indicate that there were factory provisions made for fitting manual transmission.
No the VX was never offered with a manual transmission. I don't think we have any way to know whether the race VX's were built with 5-speeds at the factory or at an Isuzu Motorsports facility, but frankly I don't think it makes sense to do it on the same factory assembly line that's producing production VX's. You'd have to train your workers to make sure they knew the manual transmission installation procedures, stock the correct parts for exactly 5 variations, take time off of normal production, etc. I think it's far more likely that the factory provided either 5 auto VX's or 5 VX "shells" without a transmission yet installed to Isuzu Motorsports, who then finished the job in their own facility. If Isuzu had sold an "IM" variant of the VX with a manual you could say it was "offered" but otherwise I return to my previous analogy: Ford enthusiasts can't claim the Taurus was "offered" with a 1000 HP engine just because their NASCAR teams run them that way.
I don't think we are saying" offered" for sale, but rather that the VX was designed from the outset to handle this transmission variation for factory racing purposes, only. Also, the parts catalog had to include those manual transmission pages to accomodate this intention because of other shared parts with the factory race cars.
ROFL
Y'all are making it far more complicated than it is.
Due to comonality of parts (primarily the firewall), the conversion is fairly straight forward to drop in a 5 speed. The biggest problems are with the computer & wiring, not with the mechanical linkages.
Manual transmissions were not offered to the consumer market for whatever reason that Isuzu had at the time. The VX is similar enough though to Troopers & Amigos that the manual transmission swap is feasible.
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Put a smiley after you say that Bub.
That & they probably figured that their target audience would prefer an auto.
He said "offered" you said "technically yes" so I'm saying "for sure, no" on the OP's initial question. As for the "designed from the outset..." argument, the VX was built on a Trooper chassis with a Rodeo dash to save $$$. Both of those vehicles had manual transmission options, so unless Isuzu was going to design a brand new auto-only firewall the VX couldn't help but be compatible with a manual transmission. It's like Tom said, the ability to swap to a manual was a side benefit of recycling existing components, not by some grand design.
Nobody ever said by"Grand Design", merely that the factory had the option to offer it for their rally-racing promotional cars. Also, I think the fact that manual transmission info found its way into the VX parts catalog demostrates that the factory probably did install those five manuals. They had the where withall to do it best, especially the electrical part that Tom mentions.
SEMANTICS.......
How about...
Never "offered'..but doable.
Jo
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