Thanks for the quick reply guys. The previous owner built the engine himself, but it wasn't his first (possibly his first l series), upon first seeing what had happened I thought that he might not have been very knowledgeable on engine building as well, but after having talked with him he seemed pretty knowledgeable (I know it must not seem like it), he even stated that he did check clearances (which is what makes me think it was the timing).
And no, it doesn't have a super aggressive cam, I wanna say its an A cam. With that being said I plan on using an isky .490 lift cam when I put it back together, would I have any issues with that?
This will be my first engine to rebuild that has any kind of performance, so I'm fairly new to that, I've previously only built an amc 242 for a jeep and a couple of 4 cylinder low compression toyota engines. Again I apologize for being a newb! And I do appreciate all the help.