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Yes the TDC tool is cheap/simple. put your marks at 5BTDC, screw it in until it firmly contacts the piston, with a breaker bar turn crank CCW until it contacts the piston & it should be at 5ATDC. I also put a plastic vac cap(one of those 5 cent colored rubber ones) on the end to keep from(potentially) nicking the piston. Balancers do not slip very often. What is your situation?

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Great! I didn't even think about putting it before TDC!

Actually though what if 5 BTDC really isn't 5 if the balancer slipped?

Here comes the long version. I know I have carb issues that I am working out too but the jest of it is that with a 275/275 @ .050 solid cam this thing struggles to hit 7K. When it was first built in the late 80's it would hit 7K instantly. I had my initial timing set to 20 and total at 36 all in at ~2k and noticed that I had a few header tubes look like they had been fairly warm from late timing. I had checked this at night once to ensure I didn't have glowing headers but i think maybe ceramic coating helps hide it a bit. Anyway with a 180 thermostat in it the gauge was also about 2 clicks away from hot. Last night I decided to put about 3-4 more degrees of initial in to get my vacuum (6) up to keep from getting into the PV too soon. I bumped it up a few degrees and it was definitely more responsive and knocked the temp down about 3 clicks into a more normal range. Also got vacuum up to 8.5" at 1100 rpm idle. Took carb down to 72 primary jets (see other threads) and it definitely had a much smoother cruise. Has decent pull but still struggles getting up to 7K even more going from 2nd to 3rd. Just all seems that something is amiss and this may be one of the next logical steps.