I'm thinking if you removed the float chamber lids you'd see something similar to mine when I first bought the car.  The floats should sit fairly level or parallel with the lids.  The opposite of my picture. 

 

Fuel at the carbs does not necessarily mean fuel in the engine. There are small screen filters in the banjo bolt. The needle and seat maybe screwed. The hoses from float bowl to carb maybe kinked

took my floats out and they're NOT parallel like yours @siteunseen. checked the hoses and they're fine too. but i'll keep checking other areas of the carbs

not to deviate from the carbs but could it be a wrong firing order? I had to find the position of the first sparkplug by putting my finger over the whole and checking for pressure to stop. I know this is a janky fix but i had friend watch the cam lobe through the oil fill cap

Remember....the rotor turns counter clockwise.

cleaned out the bowls. they had some gunk in there definitely 

some other information: when i try starting it it'll make this sound like its firing every 1 or 2 seconds but never actually starts running

Correct ignition timing and firing order is critical.

while cranking the engine and adding starter fluid i adjusted the timing and it made no difference in either direction. ALso when i found TDC the notches in the harmonic balancer were way off. i was assuming that the cam lobe had to be straight up for it to be TDC. is it possible that the harmonic balancer has just slipped a lot or what?

You've reached thrashing about stage.  Once you get here it's best to go back to square one and build back up.  That would be to confirm that the plug wires are in the correct holes.  Since you didn't remove the oil pump, it's probably safe to assume that the distributor is installed correctly.  Take the cap off, turn the engine until the rotor is pointing forward and the timing mark is at zero.  Then put #1 in and install the others in the right and order and rotation direction.  People get it wrong all the time.

The first two lobes should be like a V, not straight up, maybe 11 o'clock and 1 o'clock?  

On 7/3/2016 at 7:44 PM, Zed Head said:

....Since you didn't remove the oil pump, it's probably safe to assume that the distributor is installed correctly....

Not necessarily. Find TDC on the compression stroke for the #1 cylinder independently of the distributor and timing marks on the harmonic damper. Start the firing order for the plug wires from which ever position in the cap the rotor is pointing to. If you still have points set the ignition timing using the "dead timing" method (after checking/setting the point gap).

Also, I don't see any confirmation in your posts that you have spark. Make sure you have spark at the plugs before going crazy with the timing and firing order. Perhaps there is a problem in the primary wiring.

On 7/3/2016 at 7:44 PM, Zed Head said:

....Since you didn't remove the oil pump, it's probably safe to assume that the distributor is installed correctly....

Not necessarily. Find TDC on the compression stroke for the #1 cylinder independently of the distributor and timing marks on the harmonic damper. Start the firing order for the plug wires from which ever position in the cap the rotor is pointing to. If you still have points set the ignition timing using the "dead timing" method (after checking/setting the point gap).

Also, I don't see any confirmation in your posts that you have spark. Make sure you have spark at the plugs before going crazy with the timing and firing order. Perhaps there is a problem in the primary wiring.

You're right.  I even forgot that I gave somebody the same advice just a short while ago, that there was no guarantee the PO had it right.  Even referred to it in my post above, "people get it wrong all the time".  They get the oil pump installed wrong too.  In that previous thread, the PO did have it wrong and the new owner put the wires where they were supposed to be.  When he put them where they weren't supposed to be it worked like it used to.