It sure as hell COULD!!!
If it slipped far enough to bend a valve or two.............
The reason why I don't believe it has anything to do with a timing chain jumping is because of the first post:
I went through the motor and checked all the bearings, torqued everything down, checked the the whole short block, and it all looked great, i posted photos on the forum. I sealed it all up, new freeze pugs, rebuilt carb, i got it all hooked up to the engine bay and A833.
What's missing from that post is a cylinder head inspection. Add this to the mix;
the engine was not running before... I bought the dart from a guy that let it sit in his yard for 13+ years.
...and you've got sticking valves.
Don't bother dumping oil down it. Put some air pressure in it with a leakdown and smack each valve with a mallot, rocker shafts on or off, doesn't matter. Do it until you stop hearing air coming through the intake and exhaust ports.
If the short block looks fine, I highly doubt that the timing chain was stretched far enough to bend any valves.
Also, food for thought/ a bit of technical;
In order for an engine to bend a few valves, the hydraulic lifters would have to prime with full oil pressure and most likely all of the intake valves would have been damaged.
When a timing chain jumps, it's because of a loose chain, allowing enough slack for the crank sprocket to jump a tooth, because it's the smaller one and also the source of power on the timing set. This usually happens when it is running and usually causes one or two bent exhaust valves, due to closer tolerances, on a warm engine, upon the initial event of the timing chain slipping one or two teeth.
If the timing set was installed improperly and valves are close enough to contact the pistons when the hydraulic lifters don't have full pressure, most of the time, all of the intake valves are damaged.
There are cases where compression variances can be caused by a timing chain jumping, but I don't think that this is one of them, because of the prior inspection. If the chain was overlooked or a slacked chain was left in place, that could be the case, but because nothing was mentioned about the cylinder heads, other than they have been sitting for 13 years, probably under cam tension, that's the most likely cause, IMO.
The leakdown test will eliminate all guess work and the mallot use on each valve pair at that cylinder's TDC will tell if it's a sticking/ hanging or even a bent valve or burned seat. If it doesn't clean up on true TDC, or better yet, with no rocker shafts in place, the valve is not sealing and the head has to come off.
Another quick way to check valve hang is to use a straight edge with the rocker shafts off, across the lash tips on the stems. Any gaps indicate low/ hanging valves.
