On the B230 engines...there is a Harmonic Balancer (this is what Porkface was talking about) that is part of the Crank Pully. The timing marks are notched on the front of the pulley, but this section has a rubber damper between it and the rest of the crank pulley. I can become separated from the main pulley and it can rotate, being pulled by the AC Belt and as a result the timing marks will be off

This is a known problem on B230 engines. The solution is to renew the Harmonic Balancer.

It the engine runs fine then the timing must be correct for the engine as it is now set up.

As far as the Cut out to get the Distributor into the right position to have it timed:

This assumes that someone did a timing belt change and failed to properly line up the Mark on the Secondary shaft (Cam Shaft, Secondary -AKA Distrib, Crank Shaft) with the other two when the new belt was put on. So to make the thing run the Distrib was turned way off normal position. Rather than undo and redo the timing belt.