If I’m fallowing, you’re saying he could move the wires to get it to run if it’s 180 out ?The op states the engine was rotated while the distributor was out. For him to reinstall it, it should be at TDC on the compression stroke. It is unclear how much the engine rotated and what he did to reinstall the distributor. In a 4 stroke engine the distributor rotates 1 time for every 2 revolutions of the crankshaft(360x2=720 degrees). Keep in mind with an engine everything is all about degrees in revolution. A spark plug fires every 120* of crank revolution. 720÷6 cylinder =120*. When #1 is on the compression stroke at tdc, #6 is at tdc on the exhaust stroke or vice versa. If it's 180 out, you can time it using #1 sparkplug wire even though #1 cylinder would be on the exhuast , but it would be more accurate using #6 wire because it will be actually firing its plug on #6's compression stroke.