Along with the engine and driveline, you're going to need some chassis work.... Ladder bars work ok on the street, even a set of the Comp Engineering J-bolt style traction bars would be more then adequate for a mid 12's Nova. Locally we have a whole fleet of early 70's Nova's running in the 12 to 13 second range, about 3/4 of them run big block and glide combo's, with the rest running small block with 350's and 400's.... Seems the small blocks do better with the extra gear to carry all that weight around.... If you aren't real concerned about aesthetics and creature comforts, it's not too tough to get that Nova to shed a bunch of weight.... Remember, every 100 pounds of weight reduction equals 1/10 second reduction in ET!!!!!