Never mind, this engine won't be running any time soon. In fact now it has to come out again and be completely torn down; distributor gear has been destroyed.
Since I couldn't put the manifold on I decided to align the dizzy and install it, pretty easy you'd think. I turned the engine over by hand till #1 was at TDC and did the usual thing with the dizzy moving it to slightly before #1 fires so when the gear slides in it all lines up. It went in without a problem, great. Put in the single hold down bolt and all was well. Then I turned the engine over by hand 1 revolution of the dizzy. About half way through the dizzy started to get pushed out, bending the holding down plate. Strange I thought so I pulled the dizzy out again and the gear at bottom was covered in metal shavings and big burrs pushed up around the edge of each tooth...

Looked down the hole and there's a neat pile of shavings next to the gear in which every tooth is completely destroyed, with a big chunk missing to boot

What the F#@K just happened!?!?!?
Sorry Cam, drag race will have to wait.