Timing zx2 escort TDC ?

Nope. You are not removing the timing chain or moving anything related to the timing so it is not necessary to have the engine set to TDC. coincidently I just pulled off a set of heads on a caravan 3.3 liter yesterday at work. I had both off in about an hour and a half. Let me know if you have any questions and I'll do my best to answer them. Thank you for using FixYa.com!

I’m happy to assist further over the phone at https://www.6ya.com/expert/jeremy_d728a59f986299fa

bring #1 piston to top dead center(TDC). pull #1 spark plug to sit on top of the #1 piston by inserting long screwdriver into the hole. then check the cam to the other end of the motor. there slots on both cams that should be lined up together so that can lay the bar across the end of the head to be able to insert into the hole.
cam and crankshaft are lined up now to replace timing belt.
and Ztech motors are no real timing marks.

The 2 cams are linked with a chain at the rear of the cylinder head.

The cams need to be set so the slots on the chain sprockets line up with the cam tower caps with 16 links between cam caps.

You cannot see the front crank pulley tdc mark so you need to lock the engine at tdc with a screwdriver jammed into the timing hole on the bell housing after setting engine at tdc or use a DTI
to check to tdc in the #1 spark plug hole.

If the cams have not been disturbed you only need to set the belt cam sprocket to the mark and crank to tdc.....all this means pulling the core support into the service position so the belt tensioner can be locked down and/or doing a complete belt job along with a coolant pump if over 70,000 miles..

There is a Camshaft Alignment Timing Tool that is made to hold the cams and another one to find TDC on the crank.

there isint any take off valve vover need straight edge special tool required to hold cams together at rear of cams remoce spark plug put piston on tdc

How many valves did you bend?

cam shaft timing marks on back of cams ,two slots ,use a flat piece of metal to align .remove no1 spark plug and drop long thin screwdriver down it to bring piston just below tdc,then align cams so both cams are on the rock (valves closed) with knob on back cam aligning with pick up sensor left side between lobes.then bring piston up to tdc and fit belt.turn engine over twice with socket on bottom pulley to make sure no valves clear pistons.Remember to remove flat edge from back of cams i didnt last time and bent my home made tool

this is for the crank pulley timing marks .....

set the timing marks on the crankshaft and the cam marks head to head the marks should be with the cylinder number 1 an tdc top dead center on the compression stroke then adjust the cam so the marks are aligned remember the number 1 piston has to be @ tdc and the crank and cam marks are lined up ok bye for now good luck with it

If you look on the right side of the cams (the side that doesn't have the timing belt on it) you will see at the end of the cams there are slots. When you have the crankshaft turned to TDC and you are on the compression cycle you will see the slots on the cams should line up. If you can get a piece of metal (that's the shape of a ruler) that's 5mm thick, you can slide it into the cam slots to line can cams up for compression TDC. If the cam slots line up, but are below the engine head, you are in the exhaust cycle and need to rotate the camshaft 360 degrees to get to the compression cycle. The cam slots should then be above the engine head so you can fit the metal 5mm alignment tool.