I put it into gear and it dies.

Either the timing light is AFU, the timing marks are wrong, the cam is "slipped" timing, or you are making some mistake.

Regardless of what the book says for initial/ idle timing, those will run at TDC
ok when I get home I am going to start all over again. I will put it at tdc and check the timing mark and I will make doubly sure the distributor is pointing at #1 at tdc. just to get a solid baseline then I will mess with it after that.