Timing questions

You absolutely must NOT just rotate the distributor to where it idles the best!
Here's why;
At idle, your engine might like 20/25/30 degrees IDK, go ahead and find out.
But as you do that the idle speed will increase. Just keep adding timing and resetting the idle speed. If the engine wants more gas, just open up the mixture screws.
Eventually, you will reach a point where no more timing will produce an increase in rpm, or the mixture screws will run out of gas.
Now, you can find a happy place for your engine, somewhere with a lot of idle-timing.
Now put it into "drive", and try to drive it.
In all likelihood, it will stall. But if it stays running, step on the gas.
In all likelihood, it will stall. But if it stays running, step a lil harder while listening for detonation.
In all likelihood, it will rattle like marbles in a coffee-can.

Here's why;
as for the stalling;
1) you have shut your throttles so far, that the the transfer slots quit flowing, and the circuit which is your primary low-speed fuel delivery system, has dried up, and
2) you have maxed out the mixture screws.
Set this way, it is normal and natural for the engine to stall, because the dried up transfers take a lil time to wake up,when you tip the throttles in, during which time, the AFR goes extremely lean. But as soon as the transfers start working, the AFR goes very rich, because of the maxed out mixture screws.

As for the rattling:
Your distributor has a mechanism inside it that automatically advances the timing with rpm. In a factory D this can often be 25 or 30 degrees.
It usually starts advancing close to 1000 rpm, but could be a lil lower/higher. It is usually finished by 3500 but could be a lil earlier or a lil later.
Your engine wants a specific amount of advance for PowerTiming after that point, and it is usually about 35 degrees. So; the D could be bringing in lets say 25degrees from 1000 to 3500 , which is a slope of ;
25* divided by 3500 less 1000 =.01 per rpm or; 100 x .01= 1 degree per 100rpm.
Now suppose, the way you have set your Idle-Timing as above, that you found that the engine liked 25* at 800rpm. But now, at 2200 rpm, say where about your TC stalls, your timing will be
2200 less 1000 divided by 100 and times 1* per 100=12*, to which you add the 25* at 800=37 degrees. IMO, this is too much PowerTiming for full-throttle use,at 2200. So the engine complains about it by rattling, which usually breaks stuff.
To continue;
by 3000, your PowerTiming will be 45* and by 3500 it maths to 50*. Something will break!
Earlier I said that the max is probably 35 degrees@3500, so at 50* you are at least 15* too many.
This is why you never just twist the D until it runs good.

EDIT
I should add that lifting the throttle at any time while driving, will again shut the transfers off. On deceleration, with a bit of rpm, the manifold vacuum will climb exponentially, as the pistons attempt to create a vacuum. Anything connected to the intake manifold will be subject to that same unnaturally high vacuum. Things like your brake-booster, your PCV, the bottom of your carb, etc.
During the camshaft's overlap cycle the evacuated intake may pull exhaust up into it, which is a reverse flow. Of course the next in line cylinders will draw that in. So now the chambers are full of something, I don't know what to call it, but whatever it is, it doesn't have hardly any fuel in it, and it's probably mostly just air.
Whatever; that can't be good.
Then when you get back on the gas, first the transfers have to wake up, then if the throttles are open far enough, the mains will come on line. From the cockpit, this feels like crap;
well I think it feels like crap. First my face heads for the windshield when I lift. And then when I get back on it, my head gets snapped the other way. I hate that. Ok not hate exactly but more like WTH?!
You might get the impression that you have a real powerhouse of an engine when this happens, but what you really have is a lotta hurky-jerky.