Livemeyer, take a deep breath here. Your motor is running badly because something is out of whack. To sort it out requires diagnosis. You cant guess and its not helpful to sort of stab at the problem and speculate. I know you want to get this going but it just will not happen by hanging a lot of parts and turning the distributor in all directions to see if you can get it to settle down. You got some pretty good advice here. Be patient. Get the piston stop tool and determine TDC. It all starts with that. Second, you need a known good distributor with a working vacuum and mechanical advance. And by known, I don't mean one that will just run a motor, but one that will run the motor correctly. As was recommended above, get a real delco. find someone in your area that can put it on a sun machine and confirm the advance is working correctly. Install some nice new ignition parts, make sure the coil is good, and if using a ballast resistor, make sure it is good and of the proper resistance. Once the motor is at TDC, get the distributor in and look at your timing tab. If it does not read TDC, mark it so it does and then you can start moving forward. I know its frustrating, but this is the correct path, you just need to take it and you will sort out the issue, good or bad.
