Small Engines (Lawn Mowers, etc.): Lawn Boy, solid state coil, reading values

Question
Can you check a solid state coil module? Can it be checked with any sort of meter? I set the gap at .020". I have spark intermittently,kind of red in color.Plug is new.Lawn Boy Model #8238AE with Serial #8551330.
Thanks Steve

Answer
They make testers, and give reading values for checking with a
multi-meter, which you can do.  But in general, you have two options
anyway, the coil is good, or it needs replaced, so I never spent
much time getting involved in things that don't really change the outcome anyway.
   In the lawn mower world, or at least in the U.S. part of it, the
newer ignitions all work pretty much the same way, a coil mounted next to a flywheel generates a spark every revolution of the flywheel.
   To shut off the engine, these ignitions are grounded, via the little terminal on the body of the coil, so once you remove that
little wire, the coil should fire every revolution, of course the
flywheel has to turn at least at a certain speed.
So if the kill wire is removed, and you pull the rope, and the
plug is good/new, and the plug laying against the metal of the engine, you should see a spark.
  If you don't then either the coil is bad, or the flywheel magnets are bad, which I have never witnessed, or the coil is not properly
grounded to the block due to corrosion, so I would check that first.

   Now back about that era of your mower, Lawnboy got a little cute,
and designed some of the coils to require that they be "grounded" to run, the little terminal had to have a circuit go to ground to run,
and when this circuit was interrupted, the engine shut down.
  So if your ignition is one of these, dirty connections in this circuit could cause some running problems as well.
  So with a test wire, you should be able to see which type you have and isolate whether or not it is just a poor connection.
Sorry about this rambling, but my Lawnboy memory is a little fuzzy.

Hope this helps a little,
Fish