I can finally, finally cap this thread off with the fix. It was the hood cable fitting through the firewall grommet. It took filling the inward part with black silicon to truly stop the water from getting into the cabin. There's a lot more water running down the firewall than I thought and two different hood cowl seals did not stop it. Might need hood alignment adjusting. Now I'm on to reinstalling carpet!
So, to recap. My water came from two spots that are a little different than what most threads would lead to check.
1. Upper interior seam for the kick plate area of the firewall/cab joining - fix was RTV Silicon beaded on seam gap
2. Hood cable pass through in the rubber firewall grommet - fix was filling the cable indention in the grommet with RTV Silicon