So you guys, I think it's def the cam gear.

Here is what I've done:

1) tossed a different (stock, but used and in good shape) oil pump gear, result => same bind

2) I added a thin shim under the oil pump gear wondering if the can gear is miss-located, yeah, I realize I could not really run like that since the distributor would be off, but for the sake of the experiment it was worth trying, result => cam and oil pump drive would not mesh at all...as in, attempting to set the two up resulted in a firm stop and no further movement

3) I then removed the freshly installed shaft bushing and installed another one, wondering if maybe the bushing itself was off a tad since the top of it had an imprint from the installation tool (which I thought was weird), result => I did actually discover that this bushing was just too darn soft and the bushing installation did actually leave a missformed ring around the center, which by the looks of it would have caused one half of the bushing to be up by about 0.005" (I meassured the thickness of the top lip), I wil get a pic added later to show this

Needless to say, that wasn't it...the cam actually had an ever harder time turning...LOL, ugh???

Sssooooo...at this point in time I'm sort of ready to give up...damn, I never thought I would run into this kind of a problem, after all his is such an easy QA check at the end of the machining operation!

I suppose the only thing left is to try the emery cloth "adjustment"...