Diesel Bombers - no start 12 Valve (Timing I think..)

So I just finished doing some work to a buddy's 98 12 valve. put a super B on it, re-torqued the head, and adjusted the valves.

The timing adjustment is where it got wierd:

Bear in mind that the truck ran before hand, popped a LITTLE bit in neutral and in first gear. other than that is ran like a truck that a kid pulled a plate out and nothing else (lots of smoke, extra 50 hp or so).

I advanced the timing on my truck no problem about a year and a half ago. When i got to this one, I put my dial indicator on it, the plunger lift read .408, which is like 40 degrees TDC! I figure the timing had just way way slipped. what I did was pull the plug on the I/P, and set the timing to stock with the two pins. now the dial indicator read a perfect .207, or 14 degrees. so from here we re-set the timing to 17 degrees, assembled everything, and now it wont start. white smoke lazily floats out of the tail pipe while cranking...could the timing pin in the pump have been off?? I'm at a loss since I set the timing by numbers, unless there is another chart that I dont know of, but even the 160 pumps dont line up with the numbers I was getting..I really need to get this guys truck back on the road before school starts...