the housing is different it wont bolt up. but all the guts are the same..

 

Check that you have power to the distributor, it comes in on the larger wire in the 2 pin plug. Should be battery voltage there with the key on and while cranking. Also pull any ECU codes, in particular see if there are any related to distributor sensors.

 

So I tried checking for voltage on that 2 prong wire. Here's what I got:
-Just sitting there I got 10.58 Volts DC off my battery terminals as a baseline test.
-When I had a friend crank the engine, I got between 5.6 and 7 Volts DC off the 2 pronged wire hooked up to my distributor that once spiked up to 8.

Is that about what I should be getting or are those both kind of low? I thought batteries were supposed to be about 12Vdc, and I haven't replaced this one since I got the car, but I wasn't sure what the acceptable range was.

 

The voltage on your battery is low. Have it charged.

You don't need to crank the engine for the voltage test. Just turn the key to ON(II). You should measure battery voltage. The fact that the Blk/Yel wire has voltage, however, suggests that the distributor is getting power. The next step is to remove the coil and igniter unit from the distributor and have your local auto parts store test them for you. If bad, replace them and you should be good to go.

 

Do they typically charge to test those parts or am I looking at another huge chunk of money?

 

It's a free service for those store that do the testing. They make their money by selling you the replacement part. If you don't like their price for the replacement, shop around at other stores.

 

Sweet, well I'll go get those checked out tomorrow afternoon then. Thanks for all the help so far, guys, and Ron, thanks for the diagrams.

 

Coil tested just fine, but the ignition control module was gunked in there so bad we couldn't get the damn thing out. The rest of the distributor was in pretty bad looking shape, so I'm swapping that out this afternoon.

 

You seem to be close. Good luck.

 

Yep. Put the new distributor on the car and it cranked right up. Thanks to everyone who steered me in the right direction.