Approaching setting this thing on fire. Either the shop that did the engine overhaul swapped out the block for a different year or the aftermarket Chevy parts are so widespread they're 'close enough'.

Started doing the fit & finish parts on the overhaul. The lower radiator hose just doesn't look like how I think it should. As I look at it more and more, maybe this is right and because of the placement of the lovely smog pump it hast to take that funky turn. The other option is the water pump neck angle is wrong (new waterpump) and should be cocked another degree or two to completely clear.



The timing question...it's been WAY too long since I've done any distributor timing (all my other vehicle builds have been COP configurations). It is not the HEI system (at least I believe, HEI IIRC has the coil on top of the distributor cap, this one is separate) and when I dropped in the distributor I had the rotor facing roughly the 5:00pm position pointing towards #1. I installed the wires with this assumption as well, #1 is about the 5p, #8 at 6p so on & so forth.

I've heard the saying /The #1 cylinder is where you want it to be on the distributor/. Does that mean I can just pull the cap/rotor, put the motor at #1 TDC compression stroke and throw the rotor/cap back on with the rotor pointing at #1?

 

Basically you got it right, just needs to account for the fact that ignition has advance.
If you put it on TDC #1 and the rotor to #1 it's too late already. Because of the advance in this position #1 has already fired about 15 - 20 degrees crankshaft ago. In this position it is getting ready to fire the very next cylinder in the sequence.

One thing to make sure is to have #1 on TDC (compression stroke / ignition) else, it could be 180 degrees off.