I see the conversation above, but to answer your question, I have made no further progress on timing control. I was previously thinking that the MSD6AL-2 programmable would get me there, but I'm having some difficulty in understanding how it will work because the locked out distributor I have now isn't able to be phased between the mag pickup and the rotor.
Right now, my timing checked with a light stays right at about 20 btdc regardless of rpm, though it does seem to drop down to 5-10 btdc for a fraction of a second right when the engine is revved before immediately returning to 20.
I did try an experiment after watching the recent Stay Tuned turbo install and got to thinking that maybe a stock distributor might work better if I just used the mechanical advance and left vacuum unhooked. I sourced a used stock distributor from a local mopar scrapper guy and cleaned it up and installed. With that, it would barely start and ran way worse... bad enough that I didn't even try driving with it and just reinstalled my locked distributor with it back at 20 btdc and it's back to running very well. At this point, I know there is more power to be had by timing control, but as said above, don't understand how to get there without the adjustable rotor distributor...so just driving and enjoying it as is for now as it runs and drives great...
I do plan to go to the Slant 6 races in Knoxville with it next month and am hoping to get to look at some of the set ups the guys there have and maybe figure out a plan... I did also talk to Bryce @ Gill recently and he mentioned a future project of a crank trigger wheel to work with the Torqstorm pulley, so kinda biding time to see where that project goes... It seems like crank trigger, coil-on-plug, port injection etc is the best answer, but that's not a task I'm ready to try to tackle at this point.