Where's the Wow?

so freezerman, looks like you didn't have the cam in wrong. you had decent cranking psi for yr static compression and it looked like the dots wanted to line up with a slight rotation.

is the cam in straight up with 4* advance ground into it?

looks like your balancer might've been off, so your ignition timing wasn't ideal.

what's your plan? check the cam with the degree wheel then put it at tdc compression #1 (crank dot at 12 o'clock and cam dot at 12 o'clock if i'm not mistaken)
then put that new balancer on and make sure the tdc mark matches you timing cover and see how it runs?

if i were you, one thing i'd be thinking about is that converter that sounds like it's really tight.

also did you say the motor didn't want to rev much past 4000rpm or so???