Glad to hear you got it running. It may take a little trial and error to get the timing set where it's best for your particular vehicle. Initial, centrifical and vacuum advance all need to work in harmony with one another. The timing specs listed in books is (imo) a starting point and needs to be tweaked a little differently for each vehicle. Then you get to play around with carburetor tuning...jet sizing...air bleed sizing...secondary timing...ahhh...the good old days.

 

Keep in mind that they'd already dropped power by 74. The stock motor in the 73 and 74 Z28 (more powerful than the regular 350s offered at the time and with stock HEI) were rated at 240 hp. The rest of the 350s offered still had points until 75 and were only rated at 180 hp. So keep this in mind when you have your expectations. The smallblocks didn't have over 200hp again until the LB9 305 TPIs in the Fbodies in 85 and then 87+.

 

I found out what it was. When we got it on the lift to resurface the ground cable, the hose was busted at the connecting giving me a loss of fuel pressure which kept my car from starting right up.

 

If you want more HP out of that motor you are going to have to put a different cam, intake and carb on it. Not sure how much of that the Califonia emissions Gesatapo would appreciate.