Mild 318 pinging

You can kill 2birds with one stone, by getting rid of that lo-stall convertor.
Here is something for comparison;
I used to run a stock long-block/1973 318/904/in my 68Barracuda in the winter. It cranked 135psi.
I ran a Big TQ/ small-port cast-iron spread-bore intake on it, with TTI headers and a dual 3" exhaust.
And a 2800TC with a manual shift kit. I ran it with every gear from 2.76 to 3.55s, and sometimes with a 904 and other winters with a 4-speed , or a 4od.
She ran just fine on 87E10, with actually a pretty fast curve and 22* of vacuum advance.
I loved the sound of that Thermoquad, and used to run her up to about 15/20mph, with that 2.76, and then stomp on it in Manual-Third gear, and let her moan to hiwayspeed/ rpm, still at 2800ish, lol. That must have been 12/15 seconds at a crack, lol.
No ping on 87E10, at WOT, with that Big Thermoquad.
But I didn't crank the initial timing up either.......
At 2800 the Power-timing was ~26/28 degrees. And the cruise timing was 50*@2800, which was ~77mph.
At 65, the rpm was about 2300, and cruise timing was ~4 degrees less.
Heat is the combustion chamber's enemy; but
heat is power. And heat is economy.
So I would be very stubborn to keep the coolant temp up for as long as I could. I always ran a 195 stat, which ran about 200 at the stat-house, by infra-red gun. Headers are very good at getting rid of heat. I ran projected nose Champion Copper plugs, sorry I forget the heatrange, probably stock.
Yes that 2800TC was fine on the hiway with typically ~5% slip, or less. You gotta get one!
>During my testing; I found no appreciable difference in fuel economy between 2.76s and 2.94s, and only a little loss in 3.23s. This I attributed to the lack of adequate cruise-timing. So I bought a dial-back from the dash, timing box with a working range of 15 degrees, and I found the cruise timing wanted to be 56* at ~2400rpm. which just happens to be 62mph @5% slip. Take a guess what gears stayed in my 318 winter car? Same hiway economy, but Plus 17% first gear, torque Multiplication.
What I discovered was, that I could not give the Smoggerteen enough advance at 2000rpm with the factory advance system, and NOT have detonation under power.
At 2000 rpm, my engine wanted at least 56*. But the MOST V-can timing I could get was 22degrees. That means my mechanical timing at 2000 would have to be
56 less 22=34*.... at 2000.
You cannot run that much timing in that engine at WOT, on any pumpgas. So the fuel-economy suffered. So much so that 2.94s got no better mileage, and 3.23s were only a lil less frugal, now running the correct cruise timing, AND a generous PowerTiming.
And 3.23s with a 2800TC smoked the tires from a standing start ,lol. You gotta get one!, lol.