jerry, of course all coils are not the same. But if you have an engine with bad non-working coils and can't find suitable replacements, I personally could match up some other type spark coil to make that engine run perfectly again. So I am not saying do that first, but only as the only possibility of a last resort to get that engine running again. So NO it isn't bad advice in the least! You will either have a useless dead engine or an engine that possibly can run again. Which one do you want... Knowing the primary and secondary resistances and the wire gauges, it isn't all that difficult to match coils up... JMHO!