Electronic ignition for Mercruiser 170 (1985)?

[scook]

They have that carbon??? kind of core - Looking at the coil wire, I could see the open circuit at one end. I checked the coil and one plug wire with my best, auto-ranging meter and got the same reading I get when I hold the probes 3' apart:) - I think they're open. I could probably take off the end connectors and re install them. Do you think it's worth messing with or just do the new wires - any reason not to use the spiral core?