engine timing rehash for the weak minded Options

[r3dplanet]

Hi everyone.

Three years ago I had a local shop rebuild my 1.7 liter engine as a 1911cc engine with parts I supplied. They did a horrible job. After getting the engine on a stand with a test rig I could start it but it ran terribly. Then I noticed the giant pools of oil under the engine. Pissed, I shelved it until now.

The rebuilder pulled the freeze plugs and replaced them all with pipe fitting plugs. And every one of them was leaking. So a friend of mine came over and we tore everything down to the long block. We pulled and sealed the pipe fittings and replaced the pushrod tube seals. Now it leaks much less. But it still drips.

Today we installed a 123Ignition and it failed to start. So we replaced it with the distributor I was using. It's a 022 905 205AA unit. It uses a Compufire electronic ignition module. The fuel system is twin Dellorto 36 DRLA carbs.

So it won't start. It tries and then blows a flame out of one of the cylinders. Or it sputters for a few seconds and dies.

Going from the beginning here's what I've done:

1. Put a bore scope into cylinder #1 and rotated the engine until the piston stops.
2. Noted that at position the timing mark on the fan is at the "0" mark.
3. The rotor is pointing directly at the spark plug wire for #1.
4. The distributor gear is correctly slotted at 12* and not 180 out

No joy. A week ago I ran it just like it is but it ran terribly. I'm about five seconds from scrapping the engine. It doesn't help that the meds I take make me very confused so I'm fighting a ton of haze trying to understand what's happening.

One question to start: when the distributor gear is in place am I clocking it to 12* at the fan timing mark at the "0" position or the static timing mark (|)?

help
thanks