Did you change the timing belt? If it sounds like it's compressing in the intake, you might have the belt on wrong.

As for the timing, these guys are right. That's the stupidest most embarassing mistake - getting the firing order wrong. If you took the distributor off for some reason (all the way off the motor) you may have put it back on backwards as there are 2 ways it can be mounted.

Do as Jafro said with the TDC check and rotor pointing to #1. This will tell you if your firing order is right/wrong and if you have the distributor in right. Once you have it all right, just turn the distributor to where the top bolt is right in the center of the adjustment - basically it's centered, not all the way to one side or the other. That's a good baseline to doing timing.

hih