I have a 97 civic I recently bought.1.6 sohoc I replaced valve seals because it was smoking at start up. I put it back together and was turning the crank by socket when the resistance increased and I heard an ugly snap. The cam had broken on the distributor end. I may have not had the distributor tightened all the way? not sure. I decided to do timing belt, water pump etc. as well. I did that and installed the new/used cam.Ialigned the timing marks, cam sprocket, etc. TDC#1 Cylinder, Rotated the engine 6 times and set the tensioner. Put everything back together, adjusted the valves. Now it will not start. It has spark on all four and is getting fuel. I rotated the distributor both ways, nothing working. Acts like it wants to start. When I recheck TDC the rotorpoints to the #1 terminal on the cap. Help

 

Check whether the cam and crank are still perfectly synchronized at TDC.

 

Make sure that you didn't overtighten the valve adjustments. You need to have some slack or the valve will not close fully and the engine will run badly. If you do this to all the cylinders it won't even start.

If it's not something simple like that, the next thing to do would be to check the compression. I think all Civic cams are about the same but you may have gotten the wrong one.