base timing keeps advancing by itself...

Are you readjusting the max advance when you reduce the initial? If not your detonation may come back when you do, and if you don't you might not be getting the optimum performance out of it.

Only other thing i could think of is fuel quality… maybe varying octane in the garbage 87e10 i feed it?

If it was me I'd run that out or drain it, and quit using it. My wife sent me out yesterday "Sheetz has gas for 3.99!". Yeah, it was flex fuel.