73 scamp

Yeah man, I’m a newbie, but have a mechanical mind. I was going to use a timing light to check myself and plan to advance the timing to about 16°
Ok I'm not sure you understand how the D works. The factory D was set up for the teener with maybe 5* initial and about 35 maxed out. That means there's 35 less 5 = 30 in the D. And that ran just fine with the stock set-up.
Now if you advance the initial to 16 then the maxed out power timing will be 16 + 30 = 46* and that is guaranteed to cause detonation. And if the detonation continues for too long, the engine will be damaged.
What I'm saying is that you cannot just pick a number out of a hat and crank it in.
Well you can for idle tuning purposes, and it might be fine at up to some unknown throttle setting. Bit it will cause problems somewhere over about 1/2 throttle, so stay sharp!
As I stated earlier, the D has to be modified to limit the power-timing to about 35 degrees total, and not maxed out until about 3200.That's a best guess. Some engines will accept max timing about 500 rpm sooner and some not until 500 later, and it depends on the grade of gas being burned.
The easiest way to mod the D is with the FBO timing plate, just use the search feature.