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yes the b20a a is an interference motor.
i broke a cam belt once and was lucky as all hell it was still an auto at the time.
that saved the gearbox driving the crank and bending all the valves.
the auto just stops dead, and at worst the valves may have kissed the pistons.
it still ran sweet as last time i drove it, which was 80,000km after the belt broke.
The way that always works for me is to set the crank and cam to TDC. Then string the timing belt over every pulley, leaving the cam pulley till last. For the cam pulley, I start on the left side (front of the car). Lightly pull the slack out of the belt (don't move the crank) and start working the belt teeth onto the cam teeth. Proceed slowly, pulling on the belt and placing a few more teeth on the gear bit by bit. When finished, re-check TDC on the cam and crank. The left side is the drive side, so it needs to be taught when you're done. Everything else can be sloppy and the tensioner will take care of it. If you get done and have slop on the left side, then it will be off when the engine starts and pulls it taught. When you start on the left side of the cam pulley, then if things rotate, they rotate in sync. Also, you can get the best leverage on the belt by leaving the cam pulley till last.
Hope that makes sense. If you try putting the belt on any other way, it will be a lot more difficult and the possibility of getting things out of sync is greatly increased.
I remember starting at the crank and having the cam gear off with belt slightly on the gear and slid the two together onto the camshaft w/lube. Then shifted the belt over more till it was on the gear completely.
Ive done it something like that a few times too. It helps to get some teeth of the belt on the pulley first , not too much but enough to line them up so you don;t have to stretch the belt or damage it trying to pry on it.
Simple thought actually. Get yourself an old distributor. Remove the electronics, advance, everything except the drive and shaft. With the cam at the tdc position, pull normal dizzy (only 2 bolts, no biggie), insert gutted dizzy. Mark, drill through the housing and shaft enough to get at least a 3/16" roll pin driven through to lock the shaft and housing from turning. You now have a convenient TDC lock. The craftier among us could easily whip together a plate that goes through and bolts onto the distributor bolts and accomplishes the same thing. Thinking along the lines of the plate used to lock down the cam of a 1.9L VW ALH TDI motor when doing the timing belt.
