Amt31,
Just as Hamonthebone said above, you should focus your troubleshooting on the things you replaced or repaired. It sounds as if you might want to check your new plug wires and make sure that they are attached to the cap in the correct 1-5-3-6-2-4 firing order. If they are out of order the ignition timing will be off and you will get random backfiring and no start as you described. The easiest way to make sure that they are correctly installed is to work your way around the distributor cap in a clockwise direction and tracing each wire from the distributor cap to each spark plug.
Start at the wire leading to to the cylinder number 1 plug (the plug for number one is at the front of the engine / the cylinders are numbered one to six from front to back) and continue tracing the wires from plug to cap in a clockwise direction around the cap. The next wire in your clockwise trip around the distributor cap should lead to cylinder #5, the next one should lead to #3, the next one to #6, the next to #2 and the next one to #4. After #4 you should be back to #1 and have completed a igniton firing order.
If the wires are in their correct positions and you did not remove the distributor the ignition timing ios most likely ok and you can move onto other things that can cause a no start such as insufficient valve clearance causing a loss of compression, a faulty carb and/or some other fault. The new carb shouldn't cause a no start problem unless it is not correct for your application and/or is in dire need of a rebuild. What kind of carb did you replace the manual choke carb with?
Sorry for the long post and welcome to the bolt. I hope you get her running.
