Rebuilt 273 - starting for the first time! Help!

what kind of fuel pump, electric or mechanical? Also, did he install a new cam? if so you need to follow the manufacturers recommendation for breaking it in. usually it's holding the engine a 2k rpm for around 15 minutes.

If you keep just screwing with the engine to get it started you may end up ruining the cam.

I'm not going to crank it anymore until I get a game plan in order. The mechanical pump was working correctly before the rebuild, of course that was about 5 months ago :-&