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I've heard lots of good things about Herb Adams' book Chassis Engineering. It's primarily oriented toward suspension theory and design but there is a frame design and construction section. I haven't read it but when I was in college on a FormulaSAE team the chassis/suspension guys pored over it for months (I was in the engine group).
The Formula SAE cars that use tube frames all use "chromoly" tubing of various mostly prescribed alloys (roll hoops have to be a certain alloy per the rules). They welded it using TIG with alloy-specific filler rod and used both pre- and post-heating. That's really the only way to avoid stress cracking long-term. Those cars were "thrown away" after 1 year of build/race and another year of test/train, but only the ones that were wrecked showed any frame damage. You can probably MIG chromoly but you would have to pre- and post-heat to get decent welds.
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