I think you are right Don. 1 and 3/4 sounds about right if using the original springs from the torque tube rear end. With the Chassis Engineering kit on my 37 it ended up being only 3/4 of an inch off dead center. This obviously is because the center bolts in the springs do not end up exactly in the same place as the original Chevy springs.
Kip as far as the carb being level Don is right and you'll have less carb headaches. Generally the engine itself tilts slightly down in the rear about 2 degrees with 3 as the max and the intake manifold sits at an angle to the engine. This needs to be figured at ride height and an easy way is to have the chassis on jack stands or whatever and shimmed to get the frame level front to back and adjust for your couple of degrees from there. When mounting the rear axle have the weight of the car on the springs by supporting the car under the springs near the axle location with jack stands, leaving enough room to work at the axle location. Place the spring pads over the center bolts and drop the axle housing onto them. Get it centered side to side and using an angle gauge rotate the housing up or down until the angle of the machined face where the cover bolts on is the same as the angle of the face of either the bellhousing or the trans tailshaft where the seal is. Always be sure to check these angles from a machined surface and not a cast area. This ends up with the trans output shaft parallel to the pinion shaft and gives the best life for the u joints and no driveline vibrations. Once you have triple checked everything I find it easiest to tack weld the pads to the axle tubes and then pull it out and onto the bench for the finish welding. A few 1/2 inch long welds on each side of the pads is enough. Go slow here or you can easily distort the axle tubes.
For racing the pinion angle is often nosed down several degrees to compensate for spring wrap under extreme torque conditions but that's not what you want in a street driver.
Hope this helps you a bit.
Mike
