72 360 first start question

I'm stumped. I was sure i must be a tooth off but no. I'm 100% sure i'm at TDC and i moved the oil gear a tooth each way and it barely ran on either of those. I set it back to the correct TDC rotor pointing at #1 and it'll run, if i keep the throttle pegged. I opened up the lean to air mix but no difference. I have mey vaccum advance on th edist. running to the port on my carb right above the lean air mix screw, which is the same on my other cars. I've been through the wiring again and everything seems correct. If it ran like crap with the throttle pegged I would think ok somethihng's seriously wrong somewhere but it sounds perfcet until i let off and it croaks. I've set the timing every which way and there's only one setting that will run and not ignite a fire in the carb. When I put a timing light on it though it's not even close. I tried runnning it 180 but no dice. I'm confused. any thoughts?