Chevrolet: distributer?, coolant temp, accell

Question
my dad had someone replace 305 4 bbl eng for 1985 pont bonneville and he removed the air pump and components and for some reason installed another dist.he left the dist loose.the helm serv manual does not show a certain location for dist.eng is in time and dist is in proper place.#1 lines up.no matter where you turn it,eng will not start
unless giving it some throttle.if you can get it running,you have to hold your foot on the brake and on the gas because it will die.when i checked it for him yesterday,it had a code 44.found coolant temp switch wire broke off of connector.repaired it,cleared the code and eng very hard to start.tried to hold it open at about 1500 rpm's to see if another code would come back,but none did.i only ran it 4 minutes like that and i let off of accell just a little and it died.timing info on emissions label is wore off and helm manual does not give that info?if so i can't find it.note:eng blew about 1 year ago and car has sat up until last month.one thing i did after seeing the air pump was off is disconnected the mix/control sol and map sensor to see if it would run.it started easy and you could run the car at 65 mph like this but would want to idle low and die out at stop sometimes.ran it for about 5 minutes like this.reinstalled everything,cleared codes and back to not idling.my dad did say he could only run it to 50 to 55 mph when he could run because it would start popping and backfiring.thanks for any reply.i gave him the old car and told him not to spen any money on it.eng is suppose to be new one from local parts house.i didn't want to have to work on it without being in a shop,but now i have to help him!!thanks,mark

Answer
Hi Mark, sorry for the delay, I was out of town. To get that engine working properly all components must be on it and working, gm was just starting to go electronic and everything has to be there to work correctly. But there is another way to do it, all you need is the carb and the distributor from an older engine and then there will be no need for electronics. I hope this helps you if you need more info just let me know. Regards, Keith.