[nova}{]

a friend of mine picked up a 454 and were having trouble getting it started. i set the timing and cleaned the carb. we checked and its getting gas and spark. it has an hei dis. using a conversion for a msd master blaster coil an edelbrock carb. it says 1406 which i belive is a 600 cfm. is that enough for a 454? it should be plenty enough to get it started right? if i did set the timing on the exhaust stroke then i can just spin the rotor 180 degrees right? when i did it i pulled the valve cover and wathced the intake valve open then close so i knew it was on the compression stroke. im using the battery out of my nova with a 350 it has about 850 cca is that enough for the 454? we dont know how much compression it has. but the only thing left we can think of is it not cranking fast enough. itll crank for a second then sound like itll start to pop off then stop then almost pop off again. any ideas?