Originally Posted by gdemoss01

Yes, I took out the delivery valve and spring, disconnected the vacuum at the shutoff on the IP, and wired the accelerator at full open.

As for checking TDC, I was just going by the flywheel marker and aligning the cam with the cam tower. and I don't know enough to know another way of checking TDC

I would add though that the cam lobes are NOT pointing straight up. As I recall the second one (from the front) was about 25 degrees before straight up and the first one was about 25 degrees after straight up. Where should the be on a 617 engine at TDC?