carb spacer

A 1" spacer will help out on the perfromer manifold, it will clear the hood with the right air cleaner.
Keep in mind with raising the carb up, you have to compensate with all the carb linkage, kick down linkage etc.
As for the carb run it and see how it does, I agree that it is a little small, but the throttle response will be fantastic. Tune what you have, and make changes in small steps.