Thanks for all the input folks.  I ended up going back and taking off some more and finished having intended to take off 0.40", which would leave me with a front height of 4.475".  My final measured front height was 4.471".  That is real good since I was aiming at 4.475".  That leaves me at 0.066" above the stock CJ carb front height of 4.405" (with CJ spacer).  I think I can easily live with this under any ram air hood.  This is what I ended up with after taking out the swirls and chatter marks with a piece of 150 grit mounted on a block of marble.

(I can't figure out how to embed images, so they are just attachments)

This looks to me to be very similar to Jay's "stock plenum divider, no spacer" combination which performed pretty well in his dyno test.

BTW Jay, after putting in the carb front and rear height measurements from you book into a spreadsheet, I noticed that the carb base angle is not the same among my candidate intakes.  I determined this by subtracting the front base height from the rear base height.  The CJ and the BT were the same, but both the PI and the Ed RPM were different from the CJ.

interested in carb, can you give me details of where you are and shipping arrangements?  I'm in Boise, ID