Sounds good to me, if your friend removes the wire that grounds the dist. and you can meter the frame of the dist. to batt. neg. at less that 2 ohms that eliminates a lot of running in circles screaming and shouting.
Well guys, thanks for the help on this one. Turns out that it was a bad rotor. Yes, he told me that it was new but when asked again he said "Well, I assume it's new. It sure looks new". He replaced it and the car fired right up. The lesson? Never assume anything because it makes an ASS out of U and ME. (My shop teacher loved that one.) Helping out over the phone is pain but he did get it running and this thread did help identify what that mystery box was on the firewall. Thanks again.