how does a 318 engine run if timing is off ?

Ok, had my buddy come over again, spent about 2 hours, we redid the solid steel line from the fuel pump to carb. I was so sure that the kink in the steel line, that my local shop installed was going to be the problem. Replaced with fuel line hose, local Auto Zone did not have any correct size steel line, cut the old steel line below the kink, ran fuel hose, started car, a little better, the car did run a little longer before it started to run rough , even though it was running rough the car did stay running but like it had a number of misses so it would not idle smooth. Now before we started the car, I took out the incorrect Champion plugs, cleaned up the NGK plugs I had in since I had the engine running, they still had some carbon up in the cone area [insulator area], regap to .35, not sure if the fact that there is some minor carbon around the insulator area that could effect the running of the engine , may order new NGK plugs.

Ran out of time, we 100% sure we now do not have a fuel problem.[ fuel line repaired, using a known good carb.] next round we are going to pull the plugs do a compression test to all cylinders, to see what we have, all plugs look the same equal burn to them, [no deposits ] , also going to ohm out the spark plug wires to see if we have any bad ones, even though they are all new, inc. the coil to distributor cap wire. Pertronix is all new, however the Ignitor II that I have also controls the dwell, I am not sure if that is adding to the problem I have. [ with my old Pro Cam electronic distributor, when the engine would run I wanted to check timing, as I pull off the vac. line the distributor, the engine shut off, seemed very sensitive to that], after that I could not/had hard time to restart the engine which is where I am at , at this time.