Well guys here is a update as I finally made some progress after actually having a free day to sit down and work on this.

I had custom bent a 5/16 hard line from the vapor separator outlet to the carb inlet and had everything ready to go. Well I go to put the alternator on and sure enough that line running up the side of the WP housing was making it where I couldn't rotate the alternator far enough down to get the belts on its pulley.

Fast forward a few weeks later and I bent another hard line and ran it in front of the WP housing and beside the distributor to connect to the carb inlet.

After cranking it over off and on for about a minute, I got fuel pressure on the gauge and it fired right up! Everything seems fine so far but I won't know if the issue if fixed until I drive it an get it nice and hot. I did notice my fuel pressure gauge on the carb inlet fluctuates wildly now as in I can't see where it reads as it bounces back and forth so quickly! Is this normal now that I have a return line to bleed off the pressure from each 'pump'? It seems to just bounce back and forth while running between the entire range of 0-15psi but this could be because of needle momentum.

Do I have anything to worry about based on the fuel pressure gauge behavior? Of course it's rainy here all weekend so can't take it out of the garage yet to test.