If your belt's not in there will be no compression stroke -the valves won't move (close) to allow it.

I've seen this happen to a friend (really, it wasn't me) on a DOHC Honda 4 cylinder. It took days of trial and error to get it close enough for the adj. timing gears to dial it in.

Not worth the hassle. Nothing that makes you hate your car is worth doing on your own.