If it is a fuel problem, you should be able to get the engine to run briefly by spraying starting ether or gasoline into the throttle body.
I'm not sure if I read it correctly but it looks like you said that you could use a noid light to see if the injector was firing.
If you flooded out the rings, the rapid cranking should be very obvious. If it is cranking evenly, you don't need to take a compression reading on all cylinders, just one for reference, so choose the easiest one to reach. If the compression is way off, you can restore it by squirting about a teaspoon to a tablespoon of oil (I usually use ATF) in the front three cylinders. That will restore half of the engine and the other three will restore shortly after the engine starts on the front three.
Your car (97) doesn't have PATS so that won't be your problem. PATS is passive anti theft which is the systme with a transponder chip in the key that the car must recognize or the engine will not start.
