timing issues
 

i just bought an 89 240 hatch that at first i thought had a siezed up motor... i go to look at the car and put jumper cables on it and it turns over... it has spark and fuel but it will not fire... when turning it over with the intake off you can hear a noticabel puff comming out of the intake... sounding like the timing is way off...with the #1 piston at top dead center on the compression stroke i removed the distributor cap and the rotor pointed to the number one tower on the cap...my question here is... on a nissan distributor is it possible to have this problem if the distributor is installed a few teeth off??? and if not... what is the easiest way to check that everything is lined up correctly...

so we have no ideas??? hm guess i gotta do it the hard way huh???