To me thats actually pretty hard, I sorta get as close as I can before motor gets warm, then turn it off, once it`s cooled down I turn it back on and hurry and finish the task.
The coil is far enough from the (OEM isolated) exhaust that with my hand I feel less heat near the coil than any other place in that side of the bay.
Same on the AE86, the coil is sitting where the (relocated) battery (to the rear) sat, and exhaust is wrapped, again less heat there than anywhere else in the bay.

I`ve seen some people moving their coils to the other side, but I can`t find any coil leads that are long enough