Yes I have heard you can use a Model A carb. Mac's in Buffalo sells several modern air cleaners to put on an original Model A carb. $24.25 to $37.95 and then one for $65.50. They go on the carb mouth and then go up at 90 degrees with the filter on the top of the neck. Replacement paper air filters  $9.95 and $10.50. They also sell brand new carbs for $320 to $450 !!!!!!!

I have a sinking feeling something is terribly wrong with this engine. You obviously have set the engine up correctly several times by now. It should have started even if only to run roughly. I wish I were there. There's just not a lot more that needs to be done to get one of these old engines going. They are basically a lawnmower engine times 4. Even a balky engine will fart and start and run for a couple of revs with a snort of ether up the snout. I have a terrible feeling the mechanical time between the camshaft and the crankshaft is out. It then will not matter if you time from TDC on #1 or not. The camshaft is not setting the valves to their right spots and setting the rotor and the spark to start at that point, TDC #1, will be meaningless as well. I'm kinda lost in the thread. Have you checked the fibre gear behind the cover on the front of the engine? I think you may have to take it off and check and make sure the 2 dots are adjacent to each other. If not that will be your problem. 
  However because it's a side valve engine,the valves will not "hit" the pistons like they do on a modern overhead engine when the timing belt breaks. Which is what stripping the fibre gear running the camshaft off the crankshaft in these old engine is the equivalent. So no damage done. The quickest way of finding out if this is the problem is to remove the front valve galley cover. Put #1 piston at TDC and it should have both it's valves closed. The lifters should be on the back,or downside, of their cams. If then in turning the engine by hand using the fan blades,spark plugs out, the exhaust valve should be opened on it's cam after reaching the bottom of the cylinder,then close as the piston rises to the top, and then the intake valve should open on it's cam on the next down stroke. Then they close once again as the piston rises on the compression stroke to TDC once again. As we used to say in the Forces "Suck,squeeze,bang,blow".         

How are the surfaces of the drums and shoes? The shoes can become glazed over and glassy looking. Then they won't stop anything. It was the nature of those old systems and one of the reasons we went to discs. I've been known to have to take a rasp to the shoes to roughen them up to get them to stop in unison again. As Chet and you say, all of the shoes have to be out and touching their drums for the fluid to then start to exert pressure on all the drums. Until all shoes are in place and rubbing on their respective drums, no shoe can start dragging it's drum down to a stop. So it's usually a matter of one shoe "grabbing", the left in this case, or one shoe slipping around it's drum without out doing it's thing,the right in this case.
    Personal story: Years ago before I knew a great deal about cars, my wife and I had a 1966 Chev which we had bought new. (Yes I am an Old Man.) It was a stick and we used the tranny to slow the car down and stayed off the brakes. I think this went back to our British car days when appling the brakes didn't do much anyway. So long story short,the brakes on the Chevy weren't working very well and my wife took the car to a Chev/Olds dealer to have a brake job. Next thing she knows they are putting the wheels back on and the mechanic takes the car over across the road to a plaza and starts booting the car up to speed and hammering the brakes. Backwards and forwards,backwards and forwards. Ad nauseaum. He brings the car back and says to the wife,"You and your husband are real stick shift drivers and are not using the brakes enough. They needed the glaze taken off and the automatic brakeshoe system reset. It resets going backwards. They're OK now. No charge." (Those were the days!) So you may just have to do a couple of panic stops out in the boonies to clean up the shoes and drums or take off the wheels and do it manually. My 2 cents.         

I understand that the 10% markings on some of our station gas pumps is behind the times. I've been told we already have 15% alcohol in our petrol here in Canada. I had to replace the rubber pump diaphragm in my 1930s AC pumps because the alcohol at 10% dried out and split the rubber. I recut new ones from a sheet of neoprene. The new neoprene I'm told can take the alcohol. But I'm wondering what new and wonderful problems we're going to have now. This green growth on brass has me wondering if this is the "15% problem". Alcohol absorbs water and mixes it through out the gas tank. So instead of a 'miss' every once in a while as a bit of water goes through the system,we are constantly having water run through the system. I wonder if some of these old cars will have to be modified in some ways to run decently. 

I not sure this will help much but here goes. I have a flat head from 1935 that came to me with the distributor in such a position that I couldn't rotate it far enough to get 'time'. It ran into the side of the block just about the point where I would get the correct timing. So I took out the distributor,shaft and all, and turned it back 1/2 revolution or 'key slot'. Then I set the wires up for the correct sequence,but at their correct point in the 'circle', and started to time the engine again. The timing point this time occured about 3" before I ran out of space and before the distributor hit the block. In my case I know the engine was swapped out for a later block and  the guy got the distributor shaft setting wrong. The point I would like to make is, you can set the distributor any place you want in it's rotation as long as the spark plugs wires are in the right sequence and number 1 is being fired first. The engine doesn't know or care how the spark is being developed as long as it occurs in the right spot and in the right sequence. I hope that makes sense. In other words there are 4 or 6 or 8 points,depending on cylinder count, on the rotation of the distributor where you can start the timing sequence. It only matters that number 1 piston is in the right spot,TDC, so you can put the distributor any place you want in it's rotation as long as the spark plug wires are in the right sequence. After that you can then tweak the distributor for timing BTDC or ATDC whatever the engine specs call for.     

Unfortuntely it's not a split seal so yes you would have to remove the tranny or at least drop the drive shaft and parking brake. Any I've seen on my old stuff, the seal was inside a cover/housing that was on the outside of the tranny after the output shaft ball bearing. 

It's called 'fish paper'. Have no idea why. It was, and still is, very common in the starter motor/generator rebuild business. It's the same stuff used to insulate field windings in motors and generators from the casing. If you can find a rebuild shop in your area they should be able to sell you some if not give you a small piece. 
(I phoned around after posting and found out it's now a 'mylar impregnated paper' and is still used in the rebuilding of motors and generators. And it's still the original blue/gray. The guys didn't recognize the name 'fish paper'. That's what you get for being 70 years old. They will sell it over the counter. They also have some fibreglas cloth for wrapping the windings in and dipping them in epoxy. All stuff that's much more modern than me.)

This is a list taken from a salesman's booklet for Sept. 1/1928. It's not scanning very well but I think you can magnify it with Windows Picture and Fax Viewer and see most of it. Qs,and the Us, right from the start could have wires or discs as well as the high compression 'red head' which surprises me. 
I've added a photo of a set of wire wheel hubcaps I've had on my shop wall for sometime. I know they were correct for 1929 but MAY be correct for 1928 wire wheels. 
This should answer any questions about what type of wheels,wooden,wire or disc, a '28,'29 or '30U COULD have had. However it would appear 99% came with 20" and then 19" wooden artillery type Quick Demountables. Although I have this set of wire wheel hubcaps for a '28 or '29 I've never seen a wire wheel car in the flesh. Jay Fisher the founder of the Plymouth Club has wires on his '29 roadster but those are very rare. (If you ever find a set of wires for a '28 or '29 these caps are for sale. They fit a 6 1/2" opening.)

"starter motor getting hung up every few revolutions" This could be be kick back from the firing taking place too far before top dead center (TDC). So this could point to the timing being way out. Also account for the "back firing" out the intake.
   Trying to make sure you have a good spark is OK but if it's way off the correct timing point it will be useless. When testing for spark in open air,I have noticed in the past that I seem to be missing sparks also. This seems to be normal but I have no explanation for it. I only ever watched to see if I had spark across a spark plug ,clamped to the cylinder head, and left it at that. But in any case if the distributor is turning, a spark would happen every time the points open and close, you just wouldn't know if the spark is on time or not.
  I keep a can of ether around for troubleshooting this kind of problem. A spray down the throat of the carb will make any engine run at least for a few revs. If you have never used the stuff before BE CAREFUL. It's explosive. If you have a remote starter cable and are around the carb when the ether fires way before TDC,you can get a cheap brush cut. But the ether takes the fuel out of the equation. If you get a stable engine for a few seconds until the ether burns off, then you know it's fuel. If you can't even fire the ether then it's spark. If the engine fires with the ether,you can also pour A SMALL AMOUNT of gasoline down the carb along with a snort of ether and see if the engine runs on that. With the added gas down the carb the engine will run for several seconds. (This is a good way to get a hesitant engine that's been stored for a while to start and draw gasoline up from the gas tank. I do it all the time. But BE CAREFUL and always have a dry chemical fire extinquisher handy. A charged garden hose is OK but it won't put out spilled gasoline. The gas will float on the water and continue to burn. I've never had a problem as I was a trained firefighter for 4 years as a young man and have great respect for how people burn up things. You'd be amazed.)
  Somewhere along the line it should occur to you what has gone wrong. A further point on the gasoline. Most people do not know you actually do not need a carb on the manifold for an engine to start and run. All other things being right, a small amount of gasoline poured down the open intake manifold will fire and run for a few secionds. However be careful as the engine will try to run at full throttle. But I put this in to show that gasoline feed is the easiest to troubleshoot.               

Now I see the problem. This has been a discussion of apples and oranges. Somebody mounted the coil through the firewall. This isn't the early 4 cylinder ignition setup. A picture sure is worth a thousand words!! I agree with frankp that the terminal inside the engine compartment should go to the distributor and the cockpit side terminal should go to your ignition switch. This will finally start and run the engine.

I agree with imoore. These engines have a fibre gear upfront on the end of the camshaft that was known to strip it's teeth. After 85 years this may be what happened. It does sound like your farting is being caused more by timing than by a lean mixture etc. Catastrophic failure of this gear would occur in this manner. I can't see the carb doing this. Usually you would have had trouble starting and running before this if it was the carb. But just snorting out the carb and tailpipe while driving down the road sounds to me like loosing connection between camshaft and distributor.     

The only way we'll solve this is for you to give us either a very good 3D type sketch of what you have or photos. You are supposed to have a 'one piece' ignition system. The key is supposed to go into the 'rear' of the assembly and close the current to the coil windings inside. (This is the theft proof feature.) It gets it's current from one screw/post on the side (if I remember right) and the remaining screw/post goes to the distributor. And the high voltage lead to the distributor cap. That's it. Que sera sera. It sounds to me like you do not have the original Atwater Kent ignition setup. You should have a 'square' black plate mounted in a hole in the dash,with a thin chrome surround, with "on,off,ignition and lock" printed in white on a paper sticker on the face of the plate. Do you have this? This was the setup for '28,'29 and '30. (In '31 the ignition switch and coil were separated,never to be one piece again.)     

Just one last kick at it. I found this basic diagram on the net. This is the Kettering system used on all vehicles for 60 or more years. At least until the capacitive discharge very high voltage transistorized systems we now have that started in the 70s. The Kettering system I swear is a copy of Marconi's spark discharge transmitter used in his wireless telegraphy system of the early 1900s which predated modern radio. If you replace the points with a telegrapher's key, you have his transmitter. This why you can 'hear' your ignition firing in your car's radio,even a nearby radio, if the system isn't properly shielded. The coil is the 'inductor' and the condenser is the 'capacitor' of the 'tank circuit' in the antenna circuit of Marconi's transmitter that set the frequency of the wavelength.  If you were to hook up a branch of the high voltage lead coming from the top of your coil to an antenna, you would have Marconi's spark transmitter and obliterate your neighbors tv and radio reception. All our cars and trucks regardless of make or model use this diagram in some form. If you've ever seen that ignition waveform that mechanics looked at on a Sun Analyzer, the frequency of it was set by the inductance and the capacitance of the coil and condenser. Same as Marconi's transmitter. So I've often wondered if Charles Kettering of DELCO copied Marconi's transmitter circuit but did not give Marconi any credit???  Just an old man rambling.     

Just curious. Where do you get "Sport Coupe"? The P+D history call them DeLuxe Coupes and even De Soto had the same model as a Cupe de Lujo (translated as Coupe DeLuxe.) I do not see Sport Coupe in '28,'29 or '30. 

I believe '28,'29 and 30' all have the coil and switch integral in the dash. I used to sell a square printed plate to replace the ignition switch paper sticker,"on,off,ignition",which always went 'south' and I remember it fit all 3 years. ('31 PA was the first to have the coil sticking out 1/2 way through the firewall into the engine compartment.) As you said Chet the points are simply a switch that switches the coil current on and off. The moving point is always connected to the terminal on the side of the distributor and the condenser/capacitor's pigtail/flying lead goes there as well. Then the 'bottom' of the coil winding goes there as well and that wire then goes back into the cockpit and on to the coil assembly under the dash. There has to be one more wire to connect the coil to current. It's usually 'hot wired' to the one fuse in the car not very far away from the coil. And of course you have the high tension lead coming out from under the dash and going through the firewal and connecting to the distributor's top. The Kettering system,as it was called, is always connected this way. Stationary point to ground, moving point to distributor side connector,condenser on the moving point connector,one side of the coil to this connector,other terminal on coil to battery current,sometimes through a switch,sometimes not. The trick with this system was it could not be switched on without a key or hot wired. To steal the car you would have to bring your own coil. I often wonder if this deterred thefts with these cars.