BBC problems. timing i think

[WS6]

well i played with it friday before leaving town and this is what i have so far. my timing light is not working right. it no longer is advancing correctly or anything. i have no idea how long it has been doing this so i can not say what my timing was after all. right now with the timing light flashing hopefully at TDC on number 1, i was able to pull the timing back to 8 or 10 degrees at idle. in order to do this i had to open the idle curb screws a little. so that leads me to believe the popping in the exhaust i was hearing before was extreme detonation. ive never heard of someone having detonation problems at idle under zero load or advancing the timing to cure the problem. so im left still scratching my head a little bit right now. ive got another simple non advancing timing light that ill use on it tomorrow to get an accurate measurement. right now though the car is running fine and after a 4 hour cool down cranked back up on its own without having to pull timing back. this is a good thing so far. the car will have had two full days cool down come tomorrow so well see for sure in the morning when i try cranking it again.

thanks for the replies guys, i will let you know what i find tomorrow.