Thought I'd add my .02, I have a 4 door sidekick and ran the trail slayer kit with a stock 16v on 35's for over a year as my daily driver. It was no fire ball but it did OK on the street and awesome off the street. I was running 5.71 gears in Toyota axles with ARB's front and rear. I've now upgraded my drive train with a 4.0 Toyota V6, I choose this engine because of its light weight, all aluminum block and heads, it's after market support of turbos, superchargers etc. and the availability of adapters to mate it up to Toyota transfer cases, doubled in my case. None if these mods are cheep but if you do them in steps you can maintain a drivable working rig as you do your upgrades. Depending on your fab skills a V8 would be pretty cool and there are some GM V8's that are all aluminum and probably wouldn't weigh much more than a V6, I think that the Trail blazer had a small all aluminum V8 that i considered. I think that you will find that fuel injection is the only way to go, it will make your swap a bit harder dealing with the electronics but it will run right at any angle, no flooding issues, and much better fuel economy. The only other way around carbs is going with natural gas which is also an option but will make it a bit harder to fuel up and generally the gas cylinders end up inside your rig taking up precious space. I think that what ever you do your going to have a really hard time staying in your budget!! If you do go with the Toyota axles there are always the 30 spline Bobby Long axles that are rated for 1,200 HP I think. Some of the parts to make your rig stronger can be added as you break things and don't need to be done right away. Good luck and keep us posted!!
