Well, I have spent a bunch of time chasing the problem....here's what I did and where I stand:

Drained 1 qt. of oil out of the car.

I chased down a few vacuum leaks in the center and front carb. After I solved those, the left side of the motor was strong and smoke free. The right side still smoked black smoke, and I found a vacuum leak at the midpoint of the intake / cylinder head joint. For details, I am running an Offenhauser aluminum intake with modern Pro-1 aluminum SBC cylinder heads.

I took apart the top end on the motor, bought new gaskets with a slightly different shape, and closed the motor. Upon trying to refire, I couldn't get the engine to catch. Thinking I was 180 out, I redid the timing and it made it worse. I took everything off again....

Looks like I had a major vacuum leak again! This time on the left side of the motor.

Question: If there is a large enough opening, could this cause the motor not to ignite? My thought is yes. When I removed the plugs, the right side plugs were very wet with gas, whereas the left sides were basically dry. My thought is I was getting no sucking to the left side of the motor due to the vacuum leak, and that I drowned out the right side.

I plan of buying a better set of gaskets or a blank piece of gasket material and making my own to best fit the odd combination of intake and head.