68 dart 318 troubleshooting challenge

okay.

my dart won't start. the accelarator pump is giving a shot of gas, and I hit it with starter fluid as well as checked the fuel pressure at the carb, so it doesn't seem to be a fuel problem

I replaced the:
coil,
distributor,
dist. cap,
rotor, pointing at plug wire number one inside the dist cap, with the number one piston at top dead center
set points at .17,
replaced the spark plugs gapped at .40,
already had new plug wires...
replaced the ground at pass rear of engine block to the firewall and sanded the connections down to bare metal.
ran a wire from the positve side of the coil to the positve on the battery, and she still won't start...

I took off a valve cover and the valves are opening and closing.
the rotor turns when you crank it, and sprarks jump between the points...

can anyone come up with what else I can check?