Idleing problems and timing

Ok so I have finally got my dart back on the road as now I'm down to tuning carb, idle, etc. the problem I have right now is with my street avenger 670 carb, electric choke , vacuum secondaries, it will not idle with out me keeping it going when it's cold and when warm won't idle any lower than 1000 rpm, besides that it's been running pretty good. Now I took a 10 min drive the other day cruising pretty good and then when it hit around 180 temp, it started cutting out and died in like 30 sec. Then would not fire, I replaced orange box and coil, started up and got me home (3 min away) but it still missed a couple of times but I kept it above 2k rpm the whole time seem to do ok. When I pulled in drive it sat for about 1.5 hrs then would not start up the rest of the night, I replaced volt reg, ballist and still nothing. Today I start it up, ran idleing in drive well over 10 mins, got warm, started on and off multiple times today like normal. Any suggestions?
Oh I read up on initial timing and tried messing with it, I have a digital toming light, at idle it says I'm 34 deg, I rev it up to 3500 and still stays at 34 deg. My light is digital so I dial in untill timing marks at zero, when I do this it says 34 idle or higher rpm doesnt matter. Now if I pull the trigger (which is supposed to make it like an old gun) my marks are jumping all over the place. What now?

Details
-manual car
- motor is 340, .030 over, rpm air gap intake , x heads, comp springs , comp nostalgia cam lift .484/.484 duration 284/291,timing is set at 30 deg, Doug's headers.
- vacuum is pulling at 1000 rpm around 13-14 lbs
-I've up the jets to 70/72 and power valve was 6.5 and changed to 5.5. (Either one idle was same)
-electronic set up orange box and distributor has no vacuum advance was rebuilt and lighter springs
-total timing is set at 34

You say that you are just getting it back on the road. Why was it down? Knowing what you were doing with it while it was "down" may help.

Just from what you are saying, I would be looking at the coil but without really testing it, hard to say.

Another thing. Make sure your timing light is working properly. It says you are at 34* initial? I guess if you really can't get it to idle below 1000 RPM's that is possible but if it is all in at 1000 RPM's, that is way too early. Dennis

I'd double check for vacume leaks,make sure ignition box has good ground and try a different timing light.Even if your coil is bad I would think it should still idle under 1000.Sounds like timing problem to me.What springs are in the distributor?there should be more than 4deg between inital and total advance,around 12 or 13.probably already starting to advance if it idles at 1000,that might explain high inital.Also check the transfer slots in carb.Have simular cam and have around 22at idle and 35 total.Also double check air gap on pick up in distributor.

What do your plugs look like?If your getting 13/14 of vacuume I'd put the the 6.5 back in.

If you have 34 degrees at idle and at 3500rpm then something is wrong. Either you don't have springs on the distributor cams or they are froze open? Also, idle speed is very much dependent on what cam you are running. High lift / duration cams are not going to idle at low rpm. I can't get mine to idle much below 1300rpm for any length of time...

Check the reluctor gap in the distributor. I had one out of the box that I installed once and the car would have trouble warm starting. After finding the reluctor gap at .030" when it should have been around .007", the problem went away. Apparently when the engine warmed up, it hit that "sweet spot" where the gap was too big and not be able to start.

Yes from more research it has to be my distributor. I'll check reluctor, but I think springs are too light and it's open way too soon. Called comp they said should be around 12/14 def initial

The cam isn't that big that it would have to idle that high.I run a xe274 with an auto an it idles fine @ 750 in park/neutral and about 600 in drive.Have sat in Taco Bell's drive thru for 20min and never had a problem with it stalling.

Yea that's what I thought wasn't huge. So we will see when I grab a new dist, has anyone have feedback on just a Jegs brand?

Ok well I figured out the issue, it was timing. The biggest issue was I couldn't figure it out because my distributor was advancing at idle, so I couldn't set initial . I grabbed Jegs distributor, it's running pretty good, idleing lot lower, but still need to tinker with it. Intial around 20 right now and full advance is 34 or 36 I can't remember exactly. Anyway I need to have distributor advance more so I can back off initial a little more.