Does the engine crank and not start?
If so, have you checked the distributor 12 volt feed (the wire to the cap) to make sure it has voltage when the ignition is at the RUN position. Have your cousin put his tongue on a spark plug wire while you crank the engine (just kidding).

Does your distributor have a pigtail wire connector coming out of the bottom side of the metal part of the distributor? If so, this is the ESC (electronic spark control) and is probably the problem.....disconnect the connector (4 wire pigtail as I remember) and jumper the black and blue wires together on the distributor side of the connector....dont reconnect the connectors. You can use a short piece of junk wire to test it. It should start if the ESC was bad. What the ESC is doing is changing the timing so your jumper is taking the ESC out of the timing loop. You can permanently fix it with a jumper wire installed with some waterproofing OR you can get a HEI module that doesnt have the ESC pins...from an earlier model.

mike in tucson