Won't Fire - Need Help!

Not an expert here, but when it backfires through carb sounds like a timing issue to me. Rotate distributor 180* and try again.

Hmm... Yeah, that's what my buddy said too, so I rechecked to make sure distributor was point to #1 on the compression stroke. Am 99% sure, but I guess it can't hurt to rotate the distributor 180 and try to re-fire...

Either

The cam is out of time

Some valves are hung open

Or the balancer mark is wrong, and you are not in time as you think.

Yeah, was thinking about that too and was holding off and wanted to try other things before tearing the front end off... Would I still get good compression results in all cylinders if the cam was off?

Appreciate the ideas guys!! Often hard to troubleshoot on my own and start second guessing everything I've done...