Had a friend come over this morning to be a new set of eyes and double check my work. Even brought over a couple of old HEI distributors and a carb in case we wanted to swap out parts. I tested his coil pickups and they reacted the same as mine so not the distributor. We got to talking and decided to time it by ear. He's built more SBCs then I've been alive so I trust him. He advanced the distributor so we could get it running at idle. I checked the timing and it was ten degrees over where it should be, but it ran great. We advance and retarded the distributor until it seemd right (by ear again), and to be sure it started okay without too much advance. Starts and runs fine now. When we put the motor together 5 something years ago we must have use a different timing cover or balancer cause the timing marks make no sense. Doesn't matter, it runs. While tightening down the distributor hold down bolt I noticed the paint marks on the distributor lined up perfectly with the marks that have always been there. I guess we got it. We'll see. Thanks for all the advice and help. At least now it's got a rebuilt carb, new fuel filter, plugs, cap, rotor, coil, and ignition module.
