2, 10, & 11o'clock timing, relative or absolute?

[2003SV]

I found posts that over the years Ford timed small blocks from 3 positions, 2 o'clock, 10 o'clock and 11 o'clock. Does anyone know if those were relative (approximate) positions or were absolute?

I bought a 347 crate motor 2 years ago, but did not get around to installing and firing up, until just recently. I can't time the motor. I have it running, but that's with me setting the timing by 'ear'.

The motor had a timing pointer on the driver's side so I'm assuming that's the 2 o'clock Ford position. I bought a long block, so I had to procure all the other junk; water pump, thermostat housing/thermostat, distributor, coil, wires, plugs, intake manifold, carb, air cleaner, pulley set, alternator, balancer, flywheel, clutch, TO bearing, pressure plate, etc.

The company I bought the long block from also supplied the driver's side inlet water pump, balancer, break in oil, and filter. As soon as I went to put the water pump on, I could see the driver's side pointer was completely obscured by the water pump. So I called the company up and one of people I spoke too recommended a passenger side pointer from a Mustang specialty company. It's a Ford part and so I bought it.

I went to time the motor the motor just didn't want to run. The distributer vacuum advance was twisted away from pointing straight ahead (CC). I set that I though total timing was and the motor was NOT happy at all. I thought, well maybe a very lump, rough idle cam... I took the car for a brief ride around the block and knew something was terribly wrong.

So I called the company and they kept telling me I had to read the passenger side timing marks off the balancer and I kept telling them there are no marks I can see, nothing, nada, zip, zilch. They didn't have any ideas except to tell me that I should forget about trying to time passenger side and instead should get under the car as the motor is spun at 3500 RPM and set timing from underneath the car using the driver's side pointer... After a 1/2 hour of discussion we agreed something was amiss and neither they nor me knew how to solve the mystery.

So I did crawl under the car and took some measurements off the balancer. I found 3 places marked "0". I used aluminum duct tape affixed to regular masking tape and measured as follows (I'll call them A, B, and C). A to B was 1.789", B to C was 3.836". The advertised diameter of my balancer is 6.375" so that's 20.02" circumference or 0.055" per degree. That means the angle between A & B is about 32.1 degrees. The angle between B & C is about 69 degrees.

I didn't expect this but then thought maybe when folks say timing is 2 o'clock, 10 o'clock, and 11 o'clock, those were approximate positions and not absolute because for example the angular difference between 11 o'clock and 2 o'clock would be 90 degrees (and not 69 degrees).

Any insight is much appreciated.