standing in front of motor what direction does crank turn? on LA motor, motor on stand and my brain quit on me and i can't remember :-/.

All you have to do is look at the damper... the timing
marks are BEFORE TDC... so it rotates to the 0

Damper not on, doing rotation check on lifters, bare block.

clockwise

Put a ratchet on the crank nose (front),
Set the ratchet to tighten (righty tighty),
That will turn the engine in the normal rotation direction.

This is clockwise when standing in front of the motor, looking aft (looking at the motor).

If you hold the damper in your hand, oriented like you are going to slip it on the front of the crank, you will see turning it in the above direction will have the TDC mark on the damper approach the mark on the timing cover from left. Like Mike said, the zero mark on the damper will reach the timing mark (30 deg) on the cover before it reaches the zero mark (TDC) on the cover.

Thanks for the repleys, rotation of lifters checked out great! Can already hear it rumble :-)

I've been messin with cars for 40+ years the only engines I have seen that turn the "wrong" direction are some marine engines.
But I could be wrong........................

Yea, some marine engines and some Russian block airplane piston engines. A twin engine boat can have one rotate normal and the other reverse.

Some Hondas too. Just about all autos are clockwise from the front of the crank.

Corvair

Typical automotive motor is LH rotation, the reverse Marine motors are RH.