96 disco v8 will not start

My mate has a 96 disco V8 manual with all the symptoms of the spyder problem...unfortunately he does not have the spyder under the radio - just the plugs where it should be. He bought the disco secondhand and it's only run a few miles since. No sparks at the plugs -It cranks fine, sometimes starts but not lately and stops while out and about as though you have turned the key off. He's been told to check the crankshaft and cam sensors but they are not there at all. A new coil has been tried with no success and he has been rescued twice by the breakdown. When it did run it ran fine - not lumpy or anything like that
Help any ideas please - oh and there is 12v at the coil .....
Thanks

i had an intermittent problem like this and it turned out to be the cable between the coil and the distributor the terminal had all but broken off and it intermittently died the effect was no spark at all but it turned over fine and fuek was present just no spark, 3 mins with a new terminal and some solder and she was up and running again and to date has been fine since