3500 is pushing it in reality, I have about 5k in mine between header and exhaust work and all the swap parts... But mines done WAAAY different then everybody else's

Here is my swap
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y61...ps185c52c4.jpg

what's so different?? more purple?

you can do it for 3500 if you can do things yourself like make mounts and exhaust work. i have under $2k into mine but i built my own mounts, built my own exhaust, and did all my own wiring.

My swap breakdown

VQ Motor Set: $1750
Mounts: $60 in material
Shifter: Cut and weld
Driveshaft: VQ35 Pathfinder, Xterra, Frontier Driveshaft
~$45 and have it extended to correct length ~$150 ($200)
Uprev License: $200 + shipping (call uprev tuners and ask for a deal!)
Wiring: 4 hours of thinking, 1 hour of soldering.
Gas Pedal + OBD2 + 350z engine bay harness ($170)
Gauge Cluster setup: Google Nexus 7" tablet + OBD2 bluetooth dongle = Live engine vitals (minus speedometer)($250)
Fuel gauge $40
Fuel Setup Used old tomei FPR with tomei adapters ($100)

Cute

no i just did things differently then what i see most people doing for their VQ swaps

motor: 2000 (first motor had a issue and had to buy a 2nd long block)
mounts: 300 (McKinney replicas ebay)
Shifter bracket: 200 (ebay)
Driveshaft: 410 (raw brokerage)
Clutch n flywheel: 450 (competition stage 4 clutch and ultralight flywheel)
Gas pedal and obd 2 port: 200 (bought a box of wiring which included the needed parts)
Osiris ecu flash n tune: 350 (from Z1 motorsports)
Sohc PS lines and resivor: 40 (junkyard)
FPR and gauge: 90 (Fuel labs n marshall)
Stainless fuel lines and AN's and rail adaptor: 270 (earls, jegs racing and ebay)
Headers and modification to fit: 500 (megan racing 350z headers then rebuilt to fit my s14 and clear everything via local fab shop)
Stainless steel clutch line: 45 (ebay)
Z33 slave cylinder: 35 (part store)
Tach: 140 (autometer in dash tach and digital tach adapter)
Gauges: 200 (auto meter oil,water gauges with block adapters)
Coolant crossover pipes to work with my radiator: 100 (local fab shop)
misc nissan nuts, bolts, gaskets and belts: 300 (oem nissan)
Custom Y pipe with cat for single exhaust exit: 300 (local fab shop)
Blox intake spacer: 100 (ebay)
Intake pipe and Blox flow stack: 100 ( ebay n zilvia)
All new motor hoses: 250 (OEM nissan)

actually this list is $6380.. and that does not count i wired my harness myself, fluids and probably another 2-300 in misc things like random hoses, nuts n bolts and different things i needed to get it all together.

Im not saying i did things WAAAY different .. i just spent my money differently is more of a accurate statement