firing problem

set the dwell, timing and adjust the carb and everything will be fine.

Where did you get your parts from?

Check your plug wire placement in your dist. cap. Could be you are one hole off all the way around the cap making the timing very retarded. Very retarded timing will behave the way you descibed included very quick starting. (The old Ford Model "T"s and model "A"s had a manual spark retard control to make them easy to crank.) If you have a timing light you can confirm this easily.

regarding your first problem with letting the key go to run from start then it fires....thats usually due to a low voltage situation while cranking due to either resistance in the wiring harness, to much resistance in the ballist resistor/coil or to much amp draw from a falting starter not allowing the ignition systme to fire properly, when you turn the key off the starter lo longer has a draw and the ignition fires once. Take a jumper wire from the small empty terminal on the starter solenoid (usually the bottom one) and run it to the hot side of your coil. This bypasses the harness on the engine and B/R and gives battery 12 volts to the coil while the solenoid is charged. You will really see this situation on hot start problems with converted elec. ignition because the module needs a specific voltage to trigger. I believe it was at least 7 and no more than 11.