Advance spring
Yes vacuumed advance is hook up
Though there is tons of good info here, it doesn’t answer your specific question.
You said pings at part or mid throttle, but feels snappier otherwise.
This means all you should need to do is adjust your vacuum can so it doesn’t advance as soon in mid throttle.
I run a modified stock Mopar distributor with one light Mr Gasket spring in place of the heavy spring and a mechanical advance limit plate.
Mechanical advance is all in by 2,500 rpms and it works great.
I also had to back off on the vacuum advance can to stop light throttle pinging.
If you don’t know how to adjust that then we can go over it.