I apologize for being MIA and really appreciate the feedback you guys have been providing, they've certainly helped a lot in giving me things to look at. As far as what's going on, this is what I can tell you.
Regarding the ballast, yes, there is one and I had originally missed it thanks to the crazy ass wiring job the previous owner did. I was able to bypass it by hooking up a power lead directly to the battery but what I had missed before was the fact that the distributor wasn't seated all the way and after cranking the motor, I think I had completely lost it's position. Needless to say, I spend a lot of time getting everything set back to TDC. And, when I thought I was finally there, I got some massive backfire - clearly a sign that timing was way off. To make matters worse, my electric fuel pump stopped working and so I had to troubleshoot it. After checking it directly to the battery and confirming that it still worked, I then had to trace a rainbow of wires to find out if and where it was connected to. For the longest time, nothing made sense, thanks again to the wonderful wiring job and in the end, I finally found that it was wired to a custom fuse box under the dash and connected to what was labeled as "wipers". Sure enough, the fuse was blown and replacing it got it working again.
With the fuel pump working, or for the most part anyway (still blowing fuses after cranking the engine, turning it off and then on again), I was still getting backfire in spite of my attempts to make minor corrections for timing. After pulling everything apart, it occurred to me that #1 wasn't lining up with the rotor - turns out that I was a tooth off. After making an adjustment to the oil pump gear, I was able to get things lined up at TDC and even double checked it by pulling plug #1 and cycling it and measuring it. After putting everything back together and wiring the positive lead from the distributor to the 12v ignition lead BEFORE the ballast as it needed to be, I gave it another go and... still nothing.
Unfortunately, in spite of all my efforts today, Emma is still not running which really sucks because she went from running better than ever before to not running at all. Guess I'll have to give it another go tomorrow.
