What would it take

Well maybe you could give us some info about your set up so we could get you headed in the right direction. Mid 12's are obtainable and very streetable.

Hi .400 lift cam, a good intake, 750 cfm carb, good flowing heads,headers, 3000-3500 stall and 3.90 gears. Get yourself some M/T ET street radials and a pinion snubber.

The heads don't have to be Aluminums but they need to flow. Hughes Engines have a nice selection of cams. Their cams get more lift with less duration and not as choppy as a full race cam. It will be a sleeper. I would go with a single plane intake;edelbrock performer or something like that. A 750 carb will work on the street and strip. Spend the money on a coated header. Painted ones will rust way faster. The launch is very important to run a good ET so a higher stall is in order. I would look into a 3500 rpm stall. It will still be streetable but let you stall it up some on the launch. All that new found power will be useless unless you have a good set of tires. There are a few companies that make a good 28" street drag radial. You could use a 3.73 or 3.90 gear those are a good street gear that will also get you moving under hard acceleration. You could always go with a 4.10 but it will rev a little high on the interstate. Also you might want to look into cal trac traction bars. That will keep the leafs from wrapping on launch. A good set of adj shocks would help also. You could adj them for the street them tune them when you are racing. Reducing the weight of the car is helpful. Fiberglass hood and Aluminum engine parts are the easy way(heads,intake,H2O housing/pump,radiator)

There are a lot of ways to get to the 12's but these are a few things that I think would get you there, heck you might even hit the hi 11's
These are only my opinions so hopefully others will give there input also