Just thinking here about your no power issue, I am inclined to think it is camshaft timing in relationship to the crank shaft.
You should bring up #1 cylinder to compression stroke TDC and check to see where the distributor rotor is pointing. Set up correctly it should point to the #1 spark plug wire in the distrubutor cap. They could also have the distributor set to fire TDC on #1 but the cam is so far retarded that it is not making any power.
Cam Gear Dot should be at 12 O'clock and Crank Gear Dot should be at 12 O'clock. (not dot to dot, cam gear 6 o'clock and crank gear 12 o'clock)
But anyhow besides this basic setup that most people know, some people want to advance the cam 4 degrees advance ahead of the stock setting. I have opened up engines that did not run right and found that they were trying to do this, they got it backwards and retarded the cam as much as 10 degrees by jumping the teeth on the cam gear.
Badly retarded cam opens and closes the valves too late and as such no power, not to mention where the ignition timing is set and what that is doing.
Try the basics and see what you can find out.
