Rear Air Bag Assist ? - K2500

[Billhilly]

So. My truck is going to be a daily driver work truck. I am a welder so it could easily be hauling 1500lb plus with engine driven welder and gear. Other days just tools and a single phase mig. Maybe one day a slide in camper. You get the picture. Sometimes full, sometimes just me and the chickette's.
I want it to drive as good as you can get a 4 wheel drive leaf spring to drive/ride. I have a variable ratio steering box, front/rear sway bars, uprated shocks etc. I have got 2” lift Ezi Ride springs front and rear so I can run 33’s. I ordered ½ ton springs for the rear ‘cause I am going to run airbag assist. Seems they only do a ¾ ton rear spring. The ones I have have have five leaves plus the overloads (standard 3/4ton?).
So my question is how many leaves on a standard ½ ton set up, and if you were trying to get mine to ride better which (and how many) leaves would you take out? By which, I mean do you take out the overloads or for example a couple of the bottom leaves.
The bags I have are Firestone #6781’s. I was going to run them like in the first photo. (Do you think the block of 2X3 will hold up ok?). To confuse the issue I now think I need to get my exhaust pipes behind the diff to quiet things down a bit (Flowmaster 44’s) and can’t run them inside the chassis (build thread here http://www.67-72chevytrucks.com/vboa...=217490&page=2 ) so want your opinion on putting the bags like in the second photo so I could run the pipes straight through . None of this answers where to put the bump stops but we will cross that bridge later!

Sorry about the novel.
Bill.