Slant got me stumped

Yeah, pull the distributor and look at the adjustment bolt underneath the bracket. Mine was set all the way to advance, so I had 30 degrees at idle, and it wouldn't idle below 1000. The distributor could also be a tooth off, but probably not, because that's a huge amount -- there are only 13 teeth. When correct, at TDC the rotor should be pointing more or less at #1, which would be almost aligned with the vac advance pot -- down and to the right.