318 timing issue

Hello, Last week I was helping my brother get his car on the road again. It is a 72 duster with a 318. I has not been rebuilt rebuilt from what I can see and seems to be in need of one.

Anyway, It doesn't want to start unless the timing is set to 30+ advanced. It is nuts! I guess it was running on higher before. Way too much from what I can tell.

When we set it to 12 advanced it wont start what so ever. but as soon as we set it to 30+, it fires right up but running too accelerated.

It has an MSD distributor, so the only thing I can think of is that the distributor got re-installed incorrectly at some point.

Also, it has a 2brl carb could that be running too lean?