when you talk about the starter wire are you talking about the main power wire to the battery or the solenoid wire?  you should have a 0 gauge battery cable to the battery and then a 10awg solenoid wire is more than enough.  make sure its fused.    

mine:
http://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/622465_10151026217399833_1133327769_o.jpg

is that pic of your distributor?  are you sure the cap is on all the way?  that looks like a key which probably matches up with a notch on the cap... plus it looks crooked.  are you sure your timing is correct, that you plopped the distributor in at TDC and then rotated it to get the proper base timing so you can start it? 

Ok so today started off good, ended alright it was the middle that fukin suckeded. Ok so got the motor to fire (run) so decide we're gonna time it, started it ran over to the water hose turned it on water was flowing through the jet went to turn the gate valve to turn water on to the block grabbed the timing light then realized theres no water exiting the motor. Shut off the water, shut off the motor and thought maybe I didn't open the gate valve enough at the Y and all the water was just going to the jet, so I told my boy start it again and I again turned on the water hose with the gate valve more open. Still no water coming out of the block, luckily I had the headers turned off cause I walked around the back of the boat and stuck my finger in the drain and its sucking air in WTF and I shut it all off. Took a look at my plumbing more closely that my dude helped me with and upon further examination this motherfer had the drain hose plugged in to the intake where you can put a vaccum line right above the number eight cylinder GD it, looked in the front of intake where it should have been and he plugged that. Here's where the plot thickens, because the hose was plumbed on the intake where it was I put the bilge pump on the other side (left) and the fuel pump on the right and the side of the intake that was being used for the fukin headers is on the left side of the block, the header valve is mounted to the right side of my back seat, so its all fukin backwards          so I cut all the plumbing out, didnt get to time the motor, had to go to home depot for all new hoses and have to redo everything tomorrow, so it looks like Im probably going to miss the gathering this weekend because I have to replumb, rewire, time, put in carpet and seats and havent tested it in water yet  I didnt take any pics today Ill do it tomorrow

rather than trying to rush, i think at this point you should just tackle one thing at a time... it sounds like you're one wrong hose hookup from it all going up in flames or sinking...

someone here once said "go slow, you'll go faster in the long run..." i think it applies perfectly.

yesterday had to tattoo last payment for my title so today i finished plumbing and rebuilt 600cfm edlebrock(first time) cuz holley 850 was way to much gas.Anyone here in vegas wanna help me time her??? tomorrow ill get pics of plumbing heres what i got from today

interior in n tomorrow lake test at secret location muahahaha keeping my fingers crossed she floats

ok god hates me got it in the water and pump leaks from drive line just behind zerk fitting on suction housing just a drip then where the bowl bolts down had a decent leak but figured bilge pump could handle it just to check motor out (had visions of icecreammans jet in my mind) so i still fired it up and pump whined could hear whine resonate through hull like it was singing a bad song did dognuts in the marina and took her out of the water. anyoe have ideas? or just rebuild whole pump and how hard is that??

The slight leak from the packing rope is normal(the shaft area entering the pump near that zerk fitting), this is to keep the shaft cool and lubricated somewhat.  The bowl leak though I would be pretty concerned with, lots of pressure builds there and could get nasty if you ran enough rpm into it.

even though she didnt do good with needing jet rebuilt here is pics of her before test drive

ok so i went out to remove my jet n i realized i forgot to grease my u joints so i thaught that might have caused the whine n maybe not the jet also as i was digging in the jet i found all the seals in transom plate were missing so my bud says why dont we maguiver this n get it wet n see if these r truely the problems it had. i was gonna remove n rebuild the jet but the bowl plugs r brass n it seems like they braised themselves in n the zerk on the suction housing only has about 2 turns of thread so now i want to replace the jetbut my budget is only for a rebuild so i fudge it let get our maguiver on  i know dumb but i need to save more bread.  so i used o rings to make the steering tube seal n some fuel hose n clamp n a whole lot of silacone to try and seal transom then moved to trying to get my motor timed better my timing light broke so refound tdc am reset the dampner my boy put on wrong and reset the dizzy and tht went good it fires faster idles smoother so then i moved to fuel air mixture. i have an edlebrock 600cfm carb while adjustng passsenger side i turned it down n made it stumle then backed out bout half a turn then move to the driver side and turned it all the way in n motor didnt change at all wtf. what would cause that what can i do guys? also idles very good steady n clean when at 2000 rpm has about a 200 rpm change up n down doesnt hold steady 2500 3000 rpm smooth again? any thaughts im not a mechanic just a tattooer with some common sense even though first part of this doesnt support last statement
 

So this build i think is dead got a new boat better jet nicer paint gonna pull motor n sell chheeeaaappp. New stringer floor wiring bulkhead. Will list after motor swap