After thinking that my timing marks were off, I discovered using a piston stop that they were right on.

My Small block chevy with mild cam and Qjet is running quite well. No pinging (that I can hear, but loud muffler), staying about 200 degrees with 180 tstat, and generally all seems ok. BUT at idle, the timing shows 40 degrees. When I rev the engine when sitting still to bring in all of the centrifugal weights, I get to 58 degrees, and it seems to be doing fine. I drove 50 miles last week this way (25 miles to and from work).

I have an adjustable vacuum canister, including a limiter plate set at about 16 degrees max vacuum. It starts well too, even when hot (a bit tight, but not too bad).

Should I be worried? When I reduce timing, the power goes down. When I get to 12 static, 26 (or so) with vac, and 38ish max with static, vacuum, and centrifugal idle, it spits pops and runs poorly. It acts like the timing marks are off, but I know they are not!