another total timing question

That's the problem with the stock distributors. When you exceed 10* of advance at idle you can start to have issues, because most of the stock dizzy's have 22* of mechanical advance built in and weren't really designed to work with more than 10* of advance at idle. Unfortunately most of these cars run better with at least 12* of advance at idle, and if you have a hot cam even more. I run 20* advance at idle on the 340 in my Duster. Heck I run 18* in the almost stock 318 in my Challenger. It shouldn't like having that much, but it does, so what the heck.

You can limit the mechanical timing to allow for more initial advance. It used to mean tearing apart the distributor and welding up the slots in the advance plate to make them the right length to get the amount of advance you want. Not super hard, but kind of tedious to get the advance slots the right length and it requires a welder. And of course, if you want to change the initial advance again you either have to weld more or file more.

FBO ignitions now makes a limiting plate that can be installed into the stock dizzy's to limit the mechanical advance. The plates have multiple slots so you can tailor the mechanical advance to what you need to keep your initial and not end up with 45* of advance with the vacuum all in. You still have to partially disassemble the distributor, but you don't have to make any permanent changes to the slots and can dial in whatever amount of mechanical advance you need based on your initial advance.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Mopar-Distributor-Ignition-Timing-Limiter-/321755083510?hash=item4aea18f2f6:g:6yAAAOSwQJhUdOgX

Also, keep in mind the total advance number isn't the only thing to consider. If you aren't detonating, 45* may be ok for total advance including the vacuum advance. You'll only end up with that much when the vacuum advance is working at full, and under those conditions 45* might be ok. Depends on your engine, compression, fuel, altitude, etc. Whether or not the engine is pinging (detonating) is more important than the advance number by itself.

ps- Don't worry about RRR, he does that to everyone. He just likes pushing people's buttons.