Okay, finally got back to this. Got it running good now. There were a few things going on. I went back to the beginning and determined that the harmonic balancer was off, but not much, about a 1/4 inch. So I adjusted my timing with that in mind. The car seemed to run better, but then it just quit. It sounded kind of like the timing chain came off.
I took a look at the distributor and it was in a different position than where I set it and it raised up about 1/4 inch from the block. I found out that bolt that holds the distributor in place had popped out of the threads and the distributor turned enough to make the engine stop. I'm sure the bolt came loose before causing the timing to move a little bit and I just didn’t notice it, confusing my troubleshooting even more. I rethreaded the bolt hole and it stays tight now.
Next, my idle speed was too low and fuel mixture was rich to run right at the proper timing, so I adjusted them both and the motor really came to life.
It was really the combination if many simultaneous issues that lead me down many paths of troubleshooting. This was my first time starting up a new engine, so I learned a lot. Just had to go back to the basics and retest things one at a time until I could eliminate each possibility.
BTW, the starter turned out to be fine and so far, I don't have the need to re-curve the distributor.
