You may already know this, but remember that the rotor turns counter clockwise, so the plug wires on the cap need to be arranged counter clockwise as well. Just one more thing to check.
When you need to turn the engine over by hand, make sure the car's in nuetral, remove all the spark plugs. If you can't get a 15/16 socket on the crank bolt, remove the lower crank pulley. Then you can install a couple of 2" x 3/8" bolts that you can use to get leverage on with a breakover bar or large screw driver. Yes, it's a lot of work, but maybe worth it to get it set up right once and for all.
You can easily see when the #1 piston is at TDC with a flashlight. It will dwell there for a couple of degrees of rotation, so if you see it start to go down the bore, back up a little bit. If your balancer is marked for the early timing pointer then the 0 will be around 1 O'clock if you're on the compression stroke, (otherwise the 0 will be on the bottom of the balancer around 7 O'clock). If the balancer is not marked for the early engine, the 0 will be around 10 O'clock.
The engine will start within about a 20 degree variance of rotor position, but it will only run reasonably well within about 10 to 12 degrees.