Help with ignition timing

George, usually total advance is more important then initial because without tailoring the curve you usually won't end up with the desired initial after setting the full advance/total timing w/stock distributor.
When we speak total timing we are talking about the total amount of mechanical advance in the distributor combined with initial, so in other words say you have 5* initial before top dead center @ idle, then if you rev the engine to 4000 and check the timing again you would probably find 30* timing, thats the mechanical advace in the distributor basically advancing with RPM so 5* initial + 25* of mechanical =30* .

Total timing does not account for the vac advance, thats something to be looked at by it's self[IMO] And if your gonna run vac advance you need to dial it in after you figure out your timing curve.

Now tipically for 'power' you would need to find a way to get as much initial the engine can 'start' with [no kick back] and all the total timing it can stand without detonating along with the rate/speed it advances, which is where the tailoring comes into play.
This is where you would weld up/pin the slots in the wieghts inside the distributor IF STOCK and where you would simply change bushings and springs in a MSD or most other high end ditributors.

With a stock piece you could put the mr.gasket springs in and at least speed the advance but that alone doesn't fix it, time to weld or what we used to do was take the haevy spring off all together and only run the lighter one[1 spring] this will give you more like 18* @ idle if it's set to 34*@/around 1800-2200RPM however the intial can varie it's self with idle lowering and such so it's not something I would do on a freeway car [which is where it would be noticable, as you came to a stop at the off ramp]

To rap this up I'll say put [1] light spring in place of the heavy one in the ditributor and set the total timing [timing at 3000+RPM] to 34* and call it good.

I'm gonna stop here and if there are any more direct questions just ask.