Changed intake gasket, now it won't start

GeorgeH said
Fresh plugs. Repeatedly fouled ones don't always come back. If you pulled the plug wires from the cap double check your orientation, clockwise 18436572. Why the gasket change? What was it doing before? This is a small block?

These plugs are a week old and were clean when I pulled them yesterday.
Changed the gasket because I had a vacuum leak over the #6 and an oil leak from the back seal that was dripping down and onto the headers.
Prior to this it would always start up quickly. It would run a little rough due to the vacuum leak.
This is a 340.

ScampMike said
if it still won't fire for ya- here is what I have done to find TDC - take the cap off the distributor - remove the #1 plug - get the damper set at zero - carefully run a screw driver into the #1 plug hole - if the screw driver contacts the piston right away (in fact, with a flash light you can see the top of the piston) - you're at compression TDC, if not - you are 180 degrees off. Once you are sure you have accomplished TDC make sure the distributor rotor is pointing toward the front of the car... proceed as normal.

Would this be different than pulling the plug and using my finger to feel for the compression whoosh, then rotating the rotor to the #1 plug wire on the cap?
This is what I did and I set the timing back at 0.
Cranking this engine over by hand will be a real pain as the fan is in the way. Plus I dont have a socket large enough to fit on the bolt head connected to the front of the engine.