Red, congratulations on an "awesome set of carbs"!! They look great, a real clean installations as well.
Surely Sudco could supply a manifold as from memory they also supply Mikuni carbs with manifolds. In reality, at $780 I think you got a reasonable deal. I dont think a pair of Mk2 Amals would weigh in 'much' cheaper than that these days. I know Jerry and other like the Amals but I'd plum for a modern carb of a 40 year old design in much the same way as I'd go for other modern mechanical parts as well. A pal of mine has just stuck ZZR 600 carbs on his CBX1000 as an example.
Ref racing, I was scratching the back lanes a few months bike, knee down, everything juddering and thuddering (and that was just me...) when a lad quietly whisked past on his poxy BMW F650 with his girlfriend on pillion! That hurt my pride a bit, but I'm happy believing that I'm Barry Sheene! LOL!!