I recently did the same thing on my '76 Monte. I got the best results from this combo: 16 deg base timing, 20 degrees mechanical starting around 1000 rpm, all in by 2800, and 15 degrees vacuum advance.

Try to shoot for 52 degrees of total timing (base + cent. + vacuum advance)
The trick is to get all your timing in at an RPM that is reasonable to you, and not advanced to the point that you have pinging and hot-start problems. I spent an entire weekend tuning and tweaking to get my car where I wanted it. Somewhere I have a link that gave me all the information I needed. I will look for it. I don't think I can post it here since it is from another forum. (I think this violates forum rules, someone correct me if I am wrong) If I dig it up, I will send you a PM

Making these changes made a HUGE difference.