360 timing issue, retards before advancing?

its funny this question finally got brought up again , when i first built my engine it did the same thing it retarded itself first , just for a second and then would go to advance I / we had no clue what was wrong but started playing with the heavyer springs first , thinking the light 1ns would advance it right away but we did have a 557 lift 302 [email protected] cam in it.
now wewent much smaller 484 230/228 110 center but i am way less responsive now and lost alot of Hp so iwas wondering if i had an MSD ISSUE? or a distributor issue i need to follw this more closley , now that it wasnt just in my head , it did retard first.