I'll try this once more. With new gears installed and marks alligned, I dropped in the dist drive gear and got it into the right orientation by the book - slot at 35 degrees and small 1/2 moon up. Now, methinks that if this is TDC #1 and not #4, then as I rotate the engine, #1 pison fires, and as it reaches bottom, ex cam lobe for #1 should be lifting #1 exhaust lifter. Instead, #4 exhaust lifter begins to appear in upright (to lift lifter) position.

Now in the manual, I remember reading that with marks lined up, actually #4 is firing. Is the woodruff notch on my cam 180 degrees out or what? I understand that I can assemble everything, and if no go, I can pull the distributor our and rotate the dist drive gear 180, but with the tightness of the new reinforcing ring, I'm a little worried about trying to pull the shaft out - needle nose pliers grabbing the shaft). With the motor on the stand and the pan off it's fairly easy to pry the shaft up from below, but in the car, pan on I'm not so sure.

The words verbatim from my one of my shop manuals for 544 B18 state:

under the section FITTING THE OIL PUMP

"N.B. When the timing gear drive marks are opposite each other, the piston for No. 4 cylinder is at the top dead center position, the firing position."

This answers my question, does not appear in an earlier shop manual for 122, and seems quite unorthodox - I would think that all significant determinations/measurements would be with #1 at TDC in firing position.