1974 D300 360 fresh rebuild will not start

Northern Grit said

Even (all 8) low compression could only be cam timing, starter cranking way to slow, or a faulty gauge. its very unlikely that all 8 cylinders have an even loss of compression from wear. Also the distributor shaft can be installed 180 off because it just drops into a slot, if this is the case you can pull the distributor and spin the shaft around to the other side and reinstall.

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Def not the starter; brand new micro starter to get around the new headers. Tested my gauge; it is working correctly. That's what I was thinking about the low compression; it just wouldn't be that even across the board from wear. And, before rebuild, I was getting about 120 in each cylinder. I think I'm just having a dyslexic moment on the direction of the dots. You are correct on where they were supposed to be; just checked my Chiltons which I followed during the rebuild. They're almost certainly in the right orientation... but maybe off a tooth I guess, somehow. I'll do a teardown of the water pump/timing cover/whole damn front after work today.