Why is it so hard to get good advice !!???

Well I screwed something up.
This morning I changed the oil. 6 quarts of 10w30 VR1 and a Napa 1515 filter. I thought about the fact that I should have had a fan shroud on this car, so I went about modifying one I had here. I cut this, shaved that and made 6 brackets to mount it. It fits in there and the fan has at least 1/2" clearance everywhere. No problem.
I washed the car. There was no way I was going to drive it out of here looking like a field car. All shiny and clean, I set out for a test drive and to get a Double Gulp of Mountain Dew. It felt snappy, but I didn't really lean into it until I got on the main road. The timing was set to 30 degrees fro the break in, so I left it there at first. I figured that I'll just bump it until it pings, then back it off a bit and check the total advance at home with a timing light. The first chance I got, it started to ping. The gas is a mix of 2 month old and 1 week old 91 octane. I doubt the gas is bad already. I backed the timing off a few degrees and tried it again. Still pinging. I backed it off a third time and at this point the pinging was gone, but I had to raise the idle to keep it running. It was also very lazy from idle to 2500. At home I held it at 2900 and checked total timing.....20 degrees! Plus, the headers started to glow red, so I dropped the rpms down and killed it.
I must be running pretty lean, huh? Isn't glowing headers and detonation with minimal advance partly due to a lean condition? I thought I that when I rejetted it one size larger at each end it would help. Maybe the PV is bad? It passed the suction test.
I have a wideband guage kit I bought last winter. I had bungs welded into the collectors to use the guage. I guess I should focus on getting that thing in place so I can get to tuning this thing.
It sounds good though!