I hope you pre-oiled the engine by driving the oil pump with a tool used for that purpose, prior to trying to start the engine. If not you could damage the camshaft, etc.
The vacuum control on the distributor should point approximately perpendicular to the head when the distributor is installed. The timing mark should be at tdc to install the distributor. It may take you a couple of tries to get the distributor to seat properly when dropping it in. You can't drop it straight in because of the angle of the gear. Be absolutely sure of the wiring order as to wire to cap - 18436572 - counter clockwise. Turn the distributor cw to advance - ccw to retard. Depending on the compression, you may end up with anywhere from 6-10 degrees bftdc. Maybe some of this will help.
I built a 455 out of a 400 by using a specially prepared 455 crank. It would quickly rev to 7 grand using a dual point distributor and Offenhauser dual quad single plane intake using Carter AFBs set up with progressive linkage.
Good luck with your build.
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