car cranks but wont start, help please.

[shockro]

so i got my 94 mx-3 a couple of years ago as my senior gift, they got it cheap as it broke down in our yard (110k miles) , i had to replace the alternator to get it running fine, and the exhaust to pass inspection.

then it stopped fireing on all cylinders, replaces plugs, wires, dist rotor, and dist cap, fine again for a few months. shredded belts 2-3 times in a month, went to a mechanic, replaced alot of hardware, runnning fine (eariler this year).

a few days ago i stalled while waiting 8 mins for my coffee at dunkin's. was odd, started right back up, drove like normal, shrugged it off.

well i pulled into work yesterday and parked it, went in. when i got off walked out and my car cranks over but wont start. no spark from the wires when i test it, and the most common cause i can find online is the ignition coil. i'm about as novice as you can get while still being able to do self repairs, but i lost my chilton cd so i'm kinda running around blind (for now). one thing i keep hearing over and over is how coils fail often and how there's a hei external coil mod thats worth doing.

so a few questions. i believe my ignition coil is my issue, does this make sense to some of you whom have more experiance then me?

is the mod really worth doing, and how novice friendly is it?

the prev owners took awful care of it, oil/ coolant were both empty when i got it, have been monitoring them closely.

i absolutely love this car, and plan on driving it for a long time, so any help i can get is great. also, are there any common issues i should look out for? seems like the most common is the ign coil burning out around 100k miles. i'm at 112k now
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p.s. reguardless of the cramped working conditions i actually enjoy working on this car, and i need to figure out why my heat isn't working anymore, it has something to do with either the blower motor or breaker, so should be simple. and i have check all the fuses in the car with a multimeter.

[shockro]

found my chilton cd, not running as blind anymore.

[Ryan]

Alright, so you have the 1.6L 4 banger DOHC?

Check for vac leaks first.

[shockro]

ok, by hacking my way through the car with chilton print outs in hand i've come to the conclusion that i need to replace my entire distributer, as my ignition coil is built into it, and it failed the resistance check described in chilton (pin a to pin c on the 3 pin connector, between .65 and .8, i'm getting 1 - 1.2.