Just wanted to close the loop for others.
To get past the sync issue for me was a couple of issues:
1) stupid me. one-off breadboard wire placement on FTDI RX and TX pins. That would never have worked.
2) separating power supplies, sharing common ground between them. The FTDI now gets it's power from the USB on the PC. The 8266-07 board that I have has a voltage shifter on it that accepts 5V in. I used that for most of the 8266 3.3V pins that need to be held at 3.3V. Before fixing this, the ground issue kept the FTDI from syncing.
3) Connected 3.3V lines from FTDI to ESP as follows order (FTDI/ESP):
FTDI ESP
------ -----------
RX ---> TX
TX ----> RX
GND --> GND
DTR ---> GPIO-0 (zero)
CTS ---> RESET
I used Arduino 1.6.4 at 115200 8/n/1
Hope the above helps.
It does burn both flash areas, but I haven't had time to make sure it can reboot and execute (it appears not to yet, but it could be the blink program mapping to pin13, or it could he held in reset or flash mode - I'll keep at it.)