360 LA getting oil in #3 cylinder.

MOPAROFFICIAL said
The pushed gasket allowed that cyl to vacuum oil from the valley.
When it goes back together.. start at 20 initial and limit the full advance to only allow about 8-10 degrees of timing for about 28-30 total. Then do a cranking compression test to figure out what timing for octane used.
For 91 octane 175 will get by ,180 or so is ragged...190 is less than 25 total and dangerous for parts. That's just my advice.

Thanks. I believe the head gasket was already blown when my brother in law bought it. At idle there was a little smoke coming out of the valve cover breather. There car has a lopey cam and fairly loud exhaust but it sounded pretty good. I drove it to his house and it felt like it had pretty good power but there were some vibrations that seemed to come and go at different speeds and seemed to smooth out when the mashing the gas pedal down. The transmission wasn't shifting properly so there was lots to sort out in 12 miles.

The previous owner had adjusted the timing with an old timing light that I read somewhere may not work with MSD. I got a new MSD timing light and initial timing is 10° but I don't know where all it could have been. I have a new MSD timing tape to install on the balancer. The MSD distributor doesn't appear to me to have any advance built in. I'm guessing it must be in the MSD ignition control box which I am not yet familiar with.