well you will have your hands full doing that change. The main reason is the control arms on the nova have to be clear out for the rack in the front. Good luck with that, did it and it still hit. The steering arms have to be bought from a vendor, try and bend yours and swap sides and you will find the bump steer is crazy. The steering rod is very hard to set up with the old frame. They are just not made to do what you want, and the weight savings for just removing the old steering box is nothing...
I have the smith racecraft and will never look back. Money well spent and doing another set up on the 1962 we just bought.
It's not cheap no matter what way you go but racing is not cheap as you already know.
Save you money and buy a new frame and you will thank me later.