Personally I would do everything that we have mentioned motor wise, get a tranny from triple edge performance(there are vids out there with his trannys that are awesome w just a standard 3.4 set up) and see where you stand money wise at that time.....If you have any money left then do some head work... but to get to this point with all of the stuff mentioned above and supporting mods(air intake and/or filter on TB, headers, intercooler, motor, tranny, roller rockers, and most important a quality tune) you will probably have close to 4k in it already. It depends how good of deals you can find, and how much of the work you can do yourself. Good Luck