Well I got it to fire and I'm one throttle return spring away from being on the road
. After chasing my tail for just about a week I have found the problem and solved it....the points. It's a little more complicated than what it sounds so here it goes...
First, I hooked up the coil backwards and unknowingly fried the points that were in the distributor. After noh2o suggested that points might be an issue I proceeded to gap/adjust the aforementioned fried points. Also following up on the advice that the coil and condensor were likely blown after hooking it up backwards I proceeded to try several combinations of the coils and condensors I had in various parts boxes around my garage. After ruling out those 2 parts as the source of the problem along with my earlier checking of everything else (wires, points, rotor, cap, timing, etc.) I began to look for weird stuff. One thing I forgot to mention earlier was that I also tried a second distributor. This is where the fun begins . Having adjusted the points on the first (busted) distributor, I thought nothing of it....even after I swapped out for a new dist. BIG mistake. I knew it had to be way too simple but the points in the second distributor were WAYY out of adjustment (less that 8/1000ths gap). After fixing that I immediately got spark, checked timing and firing order and fired it up. Man I can breathe a big sigh of relief. Thanks for the help noh2o!!!! You're a life saver .