Thanks for the replies. Had another hour on this today and found the following

1. Ignition on - fuel pump primes, stops, and doesnt start again when cranking.

2. No spark and no injector pulse

removed the dist cap and can see the following

1. Coil with 2 wires: 1 black/yellow which is battery voltage when cranking, the other (green)has no signal on it

2. What looks like may be an amplifier from which the green on the coil goes to along with a further 3 wires. 1 is black yellow (spliced in to the same as the coil 12v when cranking, the other 2 no change when cranking

3. A sensor pointing at a toothed wheel on the dist. shaft (is this the engine speed sensor?) This has 2 wires, which produce a clean sinewave peaking at 1v when cranking. Traced these two wires back to the ecu at which point they are 1 blue and the other white. I have the same sinewave signal at the ECU
4. 4 more wires disapear off underneath the dist. baseplate so I cant see what they go to and ran out of time to scope them. Will do this tomorrow.

I double checked the live data and I have no rpm signal, immo is shown as 'run' and all other date looks correct and alters when it should (throttle position etc) so I have no reason to suspect scanner issue.

ECU has the following on a sticker:
E53 OKi (UK) Limited Made in UK!
37820-pij-eis


Will update after next look.

Cheers

Steve