Rich,
The coils can be checked with an ohm meter as follow: The resistance between terminal 1 and 15 should be .4 to .7 ohms. The resistance between terminal 1 and 4 (coil wire to distributor) should be 5 to 8.7k ohms. There is a note to the effect that testing by spark gap (high resistance) could destroy the coil and ignition control unit. BTW the ignition timing is as follows (finally got the manual out):
         left dist    cyl 1-7-6-4
         right dist  cyl 2-5-8-3
         firing order all 1-3-7-2-6-5-4-8

Dennis

Resistance between 1 and 15 should be 0.33 - 0.46 ohms.