Just reading about it. So low side of resistor is bypassed in starting and reduces voltage to the coil in run. I guess if the car starts and shuts off immediately would be reason to suspect faulty resistor on low ohm side.
ECU is mostly just a transistor. The pickup in distrib is the base trigger for the transistor. The transistor complete the ground for the coil primary, timed by the reluctor. A bit confusing looking at the full wiring schematic in FSM trying to follow circuit not quite sure of the path for supply voltage to the controller. So still not sure if the 5 ohm resistor is required to power the controller during start.