mesaflyer, what I do is take a piece of 256 pushrod and sand the end so it fits in the needle valve end,then I put a bend in it to make it easy to turn outside of the cowl, it also helps to keep track of how many turns you have,as well as making it easy to turn while its running.
here's my mustang notice the "L" bend wire after you put the cowl on, just feed the needle into the engine through the hole you need to cut into the cowl.