Rebuilt 318 Refuses to Start

I finally got her to fire up. It was a combination of an out of sync timing chain and the mysterious #6 as #1. When I spun the chain so they were both at 12, the rotor wasn't pointed towards the #1 plug, so I put it back to 6 on the cam and 12 on the crank and placed the #6 plug where the rotor was. Fired up instantly. I'm putting it back together now and I just have two further questions:

Is it normal that one side of the timing chain is tighter than the other? The looser side has play like it should, but the other is tighter.

and:
Are all v8s with the same firing order going to have this #6 as #1 when the timing dots are aligned? I've never heard of it before.

I also want to give a HUGE thank you to everybody involved. Hopefully I'll get to enjoy my baby before she needs more work. Couldn't have done it without you. Even the pros I talked to didn't tell me about the 6 trick.