Not sure how I missed this message. Sorry for the late reply.
I haven't messed with it at all yet and I took it back to the shop this past weekend. The shop has a customer that may be interested in buying my motor and then they'd build me one that is more of a stock motor. Since the stock motor should be cheaper to build than what I got built, I'm hoping that evolution, if it occurs, will be essentially at no cost to me. That's a hope, anyway.
If the motor does get swapped, that won't happen until next year sometime, so I will have some time to play with it before that happens. I've been looking at timing threads and had no idea you could adjust mechanical and vacuum timing, so that'll be something new for me to learn!
The shop did send me a message recently that said he swapped the carburetor and it started right up, so at the very least, I will be able to drive it reliably until we get the motor tuning/new motor situation figured out.
Thanks for your help!
-r