273 questions...a few of them

4spdragtop said

At home now on break, so dad is gonna pull the new lifter and compare with the old ones. Oh with the red balancer, which is the one we have been using, we turned the engine over until you could feel compression on #1 cyl, looked at the groove in the balancer and it matched up with 0 on the timing marker. So Im assuming good??

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If you're just starting to "feel" compression and it's already hitting 0 on th etiming mark you might still be off. Pull the spark plugs and find out where TDC really really is, it's not that hard, just stuff a screwdriver (or rubber coated plier handle or a fancy non-marring plastic depthfinder or whatever) - make sure you hold it at the exact same depth - into the sparkplug hole, turn clockwise until you tap, mark it, then rotate counterclockwise until it taps again, mark it there. Put a measuring tape on the balancer to measure the distance between the marks, divide it in half, and mark that. That's real TDC and it will take you ten minutes to find. If the balancer is marked right? Great, now at least you know. It doesn't sound like you're a total chucklehead, so I am willing to say isn't installer error, but proving that requires knowing you're at TDC. TBH if the lifters are OK and you're adjusting from true TDC, this whole thing kinda reeks of misground/mislabeled cam, it's not super duper common but it _does_ happen, I've not had one myself.