Figured id share my garbage..

May explain why your fuel pressure was dropping if your running mechanical pump ?

It’s not a mechanical pump. The plug in the block is stripped so I just left the fuel pump push rod in the motor.
Kinda hard to tell from the pic but did it waller out the hole for the dowel pin in the cam?

Yeah it did a bit. With the dowel bottomed out in the cam it doesn’t move. Assuming it slipped out some before it started opening the hole up.