You have to remember that the engine makes two revolutions for each distributor rotation, so the flywheel arrow will line up when you are ready to fire on number six or on number one. Either hold your finger over plug hole number one until compression blows it out and turn the engine over to the closest place that the arrow is on the crank marker, then check to see where the rotor is pointing and put number one wire in that position and the other wires in the correct firing order or pull the valve cover and check to see if both valves are closed on number one when the timing mark lines up. If they are not, rotate the enginge one revolution and place number one wire in the location where the rotor is pointing, etc. The distributor could have been installed in any attitude, so you can't go by where number one is supposed to be unless it was installed correctly. Put the octane selector on zero and only use it for fine tuning after you get it started.