just rebuilt runs bad
I know you checked the cam timing with the number 6 in overlap but imho that cam is not installed properly.
By the time my buddy arrived I had the plugs out, dist. cap off, fan removed (to hand crank motor easier), and valve covers off. We checked TDC with the piston stop. The TDC mark on the balancer was spot on against zero on the timing chain cover. With the #1 piston at TDC on compression stroke I kept hand cranking the engine clockwise. At 180 ATDC the #1 exhaust valve started opening, and the same time the number 6 cylinder intake started opening. We turned the engine back to TDC compression stroke and added 12 degrees (12 BTDC). The rotor was pointing towards the first bolt on the intake drivers side and we lined the #1 distributor terminal accordingly. Put everything else back together and started the engine. After it warmed up we adjusted initial timing to 18 BTDC and went for a test drive. It did not run well, missing an no power when pushing down on the pedal. We stopped and readjusted initial timing to 35 BTDC. It ran tons better and I turned to my buddy for answers.
After talking about it we decided to try total timing. So we went back to 18 BTDC initial, increased RPM and at over 4K RPM set timing at 38 BTDC. This brought initial timing down to 12. We test drove and to my surprise it ran pretty good. There was still some miss firing and power loss upon acceleration but it wasn't terrible. We agreed that with a little tweaking it may run decent and if nothing else the timing setting as is shouldn't hurt anything. He thought maybe my high initial timing readings were due to my idle being up around 800 to 900 RPM and the Dist. mechanical advance being sensitive. He suggested not to worry about previous initial timing settings and focus on total timing and try and get it running good where it is now by tweaking.
Honestly, I'm still puzzled.
This thread has probably gone on for too long to be productive to others anymore. There is great advice here from the A body community which I truly appreciated. Thank you all. I'll either get it figured out, break something bad, or take a sledge hammer to it. Whatever the outcome I'll post it here.
Thanks again.