ok, so this morning, i pulled the distributor drive shaft again and checked it against 2 others. no difference. i thought maybe the gear had slipped. put it all back together, lining up the dots and still come up with the drive tang in the wrong position, but, the rotor is pointed dead nuts #1. checked spark at the coil by turning the distributor, perfect. checked plug wire position. checked #1 at tdc. checked cam lobes on #1, pointing up, ready for exhaust stroke. timing pointer on tdc. everything checks out fine at tdc, but i cant get it to run without advancing the timing to maybe 60-70* btdc.
here is a short clip. the white mark on the crank pulley is 40* btdc
DSCN0216.AVI