Timing help!!

I'm not a fan of the total timing deal on street cars with mechanical advance. As 1wild suggested, it's cool to get a baseline to begin from. There are too many variables that can throw you for a loop. One distributor may have 28* in it, another may have 20* and each will cause your engine to react very different at idle. As an example - If your engine want 18* initial, and you have a distributor with 28* mechanical in it, timing it at 34* total gives you 6* initial (34-28 = 6), not near enough and you'll likely never get it to run properly.

Here's my suggestion to get it running better.
Whatever the timing is set at idle now, verify the setting and turn the distributor a bit to advance it and see if it picks up RPM from your base rpm. If it does, reset/lower the idle back to desired rpm. Keep doing that until it stops picking up rpm. Once you reach that point, tighten it, turn it off and see if it starts or kicks back on the starter. If it starts OK when hot, that's where you should leave it. Put the timing light on it to verify the amount of initial.

Now you can tailor the mechanical advance to reach the desired total, usually anywhere from 32-38* depending on engine. Different distributors require their own method.

IMHO, Timing is the root cause of probably 90-95% of carb issues at idle.