Getting motor level...How?

I have a 350 Chev mounted in a 1941 Ford coupe frame & want to get the motor level before going any further, or is it that important.
When a level is placed on the intake manifold & motor is made level, the crankshaft is not level. The distance between the front of crank and floor is 1 1/2 inches higher than the distance of the Trans. output shaft and floor. I ***ume that the crank and Teans shaft are perfectly in line. Any help would be appreciated.

 

level the top of the intake manifold. . . the crank is not supposed to be level.

 

if the rear is already in, mount the engine and transmission with the output shaft parallel with the pinion shaft
the carb can be out of level a couple degrees but the crank/trans and diff need to be parallel

 

i've wondered about this also since im new at this stuff too, but i figured the angle of the drive shaft is more important than the angle the carb is going to be in.

 

The most important thing is to have the carb base level. All V8 engines are built so that when the carb base is level, the crankshaft (and by default the transmission output shaft) angle down at approximately 3 degrees, to avoid having a tremendous transmission hump and driveshaft tunnel in the floor of the car. The rearend pinion angle should tilt up about 3 degrees, yes, in theory parallel to the engine crankshaft.

 

there are different ways to do this, as you'll see if you search the archives for past threads on the subject.

The most common approach is to set the engine nose up about 3 to 4 degrees relative to the frame. This puts the carb flange parallel to the frame, as it is in normal production cars.

You can do it differently, but this way works well and looks right.