[DanEC]

Not sure mine will be representative of what you need as I have mild compression and iron heads. Keith Craft recommended 40 deg total timing but I'm running 38 total with 16 of it initial timing. I'm running an original dual point 427 distributor.

Without vacuum advance you need to be able to run fairly high initial timing to get any sort of reasonable idle for the street and to prevent it from running hot. If you are at about 15deg +/- initial and 32 with full centrifugal advance, you have a distributor that is pretty aggressive. To get up to 38 degrees you need 20 to 21 degrees initial. As long as you have a strong starter that will turn it over that could be OK.