just wanted to give some closure to this thread. Finally got so frustrated at just guessing so I put a meter on the connectors coming from the stator. The pulse was sending signal thru the two connector black plug, however the whitish plastic plug was not. This was the "checkered" wiring that went to the upper coil, the smaller one that went inside the flywheel. I had a spare stator and replaced it using a soldering iron.
Went over all the wiring again, put it back together and go spark. I've been driving it around the yard in the snow.
Honestly I'm still not 100% certain that was the problem, it may have been a loose connection that I just shored up while doing the wiring but at any case, I attempted to use a methodical approach to isolating the problem.
At this point I'm not sure there isn't too much about an LT230S I can't fix. This thing was a basket case.