'96 caprice LT1 won't run

I need some help. My '96 ex-pursuit cruiser decided to die on me the other day. I pulled onto the highway and as usual kicked it down to get to my normal 140km/h & it coughed & sputtered but I managed to pull it over where it ran rough for a couple mins before dying. It felt like my old days when the old 350s I ran when the timing chain would jump a few teeth.
The car will try to fire every once in a while as I turn it over but not enough to start. I replaced the coil with hopes that it just wasn't strong enough anymore (but knew in the back of my mind that this shouldn't have done it). How do I check the timing without a scanner? Could it be a timing chain or even the crank sensor or ???
PLEASE HELP.

It turned out to be that the screw fell out of the rotor in the "opti-spark" distributor. a fairly quick fix but an expensive lesson since my local chevrolet dealer (True North in North Bay Ontario) ended up pulling the front cover after deciding that the timing chain had jumped & it hadn't. I took it to a chev dealer hoping they would know or be able to figure it out properly! $686.00 later I towed the car back home in pieces & put it back together myself!