Drilling the throttle plates

Put as much on it as the starter will take when warm, at least you know the limit. It may not want that much initial timing. Start around 15 btdc and see how it goes.

I believe some of the ford distributor vacuum cans work on manifold, not ported vacuum.

Unless it has a monster camshaft in it, drilling the plates is usually not necessary if you have the other systems dialed in properly.