Just an update here, dropping the spark plug gap took care of the problem so far. Recently I decided to play with the vacuum advance some to see if that would also help smooth out the cold starts. I have my initial timing set at 14 degrees and total 34 degrees at 3500 rpms, but have been running it with the vacuum advance disconnected; it ran great that way and pulled strong.

So anyway this morning I connected the vacuum advance up to manifold vacuum to see if it would help on cold starts and after readjusting the idle screw (it raised the idle by around 400 rpms) I was pleasantly surprised that it did smooth out the cold start quite a bit. I took it for a spin and found that it idled better and didn't seem to have any negative effects on how it pulled through out the rpms. I go through this with every engine swap I do, but I'll eventually find the sweet spot for it.