Turns out that I was wrong about the wires... there was a plug in the back for the four wires controlled by the ECM. I replaced with a late-70's HEI and have also replaced the cap, rotor and coil. I installed on TDC, hooked the three wire plug into the cap. Hooked the pink power wire and.... NOTHING!
These distributors are supposed to be self-contained and need only the 12 volt power wire to the cap. My feeling is that I've correctly installed a new cap, rotor, coil and distributor and supplied 12 volt and should expect spark!
Am I missing something? Does the idled ECM transmit some kind of ghost killer signal in some trans-indental way? I've reached the bottom of my diagnostic tool bag... HELP!