Pulling intake manifold to inspect for leakage into #1, she is pretty rusty. My son dropped boat off and I had no battery so I could not set at TDC #1.

Sanity Check-
Mark position or Distributor base relative to Intake manifold with a scribe (this of course is just a ballpark pos)
Pull cap off (crab style) and mark rotor position relative to Distributor body as well as position of rotor when disengaged from cam gear.
Reinstall exactly the same way it came out with rotor pointed to mark I made on Dist body. This of course would only get you VERY close to original positon. From what I have read the MPI ECU will adjust within a "range".

Am I missing something, seems like this is straightforward. Just asking for a sanity check to see if I missed something. I have not pulled Dist yet as I have other projects on my racebike today.

That is the basic jist of it. You will actually have to rotate the rotor back about 30 to 60 degress prior to the mark when installing as the distributor shaft will rotate as the helical cam and distributor gears mesh.

Copy that, number of teeth / 360 is the offset. I usually mark final position and position once extracted. Just checking to make sure I was not oversimplifying what appeared to be obvious. Still getting adjusted to newer tech, my KnowledgeBase limited to simpler stuff. Worked 35 years as computer tech so I know better to ask before rather than later! Thanks for the info. I will likely seek more if unable to locate definitive answer in manual.

Copy that, number of teeth / 360 is the offset. I usually mark final position and position once extracted. Just checking to make sure I was not oversimplifying what appeared to be obvious. Still getting adjusted to newer tech, my KnowledgeBase limited to simpler stuff. Worked 35 years as computer tech so I know better to ask before rather than later! Thanks for the info. I will likely seek more if unable to locate definitive answer in manual.

carry a spare rotor as its common for the center tang to break off, and if you have a weird miss fire rotate the distributer a bit one way or the other i use a cut away cap to get phasing close

You need to read up on this a bit, but here are the basics:
-find TDC (your method can still be 180 off) A thumb on #1 spark plug hole works well in conjunction with the timing marks on the balancer.
-install distributor pointing to cylinder #1 spark plug wire
-get motor started and turn the distributor either direction until the motor sounds "good"
-put ecm in base timing mode. A scan tool or jumper wire is needed.
-set timing with a timing light at specified RPM

the timing is crank or cam triggered turning the dist does not change timing just rotor phasing

I will have him clean the old Cap up and keep with other onboard spares. I am going to swap out the Torx heads Dist screws for a hex head along with a spare incase the gravity ***** drops one in the bilge. Had not head of a tab on any other Rotors having an issue with coming off. I suppose it is a mfg issue.

From what I read as long as the dist is put back in the way it came out and engine rotation has not been disturbed the handshaking between the Crank Sensor and ECU will take care of itself.