360 timing ignition woes

moparjoe71 said
Also to note on the wiring harness: I did upgrade the charging system to bypass the amp meter and upsized the charge wire to the battery from the alternater. And I pulled apart each side of the bull head and cleaned each connection and reassembled and upgraded to head light wording to the run through relays. Not sure if it helps. But the cam is a hydrolic 528 lift. 302 duration and the chain is a cloyes double roller

Very good on the connections. But something has changed and the good work you did on the electrical connections may have become undone. So don't rule out anything at this point. More thoughts:

Did you set the reluctor gap to the distributor pulse ring to .008" with a non-magnetic feeler gauge?
Have you checked the 2 prong connection between the distributor and the ECU to make sure the wires are not swapped? This will cause the ECU to trigger on the wrong edge of the magnetic impulse (the slow edge) and cause erratic timing.
Turn the engine to where the reluctor gap is aligned with one of the 'peaks' on the distributor ring (where it ought to fire a cylinder) and then look at exactly where the rotor is pointing It ought to be close to one of the spark towers. If it is in-between towers, then you have a rotor phasing issue.
Use a voltmeter to make sure the coil+ is getting 10-11 volts while cranking.

An electrical issue is the 1st thing to suspect... the slow cranking and the erratic firing and backfiring is symptoms of this.