[corellian corvette]

If you have very heavy original springs, revving the motor up to 3K and dialing into 36 may not work. It's possible your springs don't allow full advance at that low RPM.

Also, revving the motor that high with no load isn't that great for the engine, not to mention it's hard to get exactly 3K while playing with a timing light.

There is a DEAD simple way to get 36deg if you have a POINTS distributor (which, based on your installation of pertronix, you do) and it will take less than 5 min.

Pull the cap, and remove the springs. Plug the vacuum advance. Set you dial-back light to 36 deg.

Start the car. It may buck (hard start) because of the over-advance. You are now running with FULL mechanical advance. Set your balancer to 0 with your dial-back at 36.

You now know, with 100% certainty, that your distributor will not go past 36 deg.

Re-install the springs, re-start the motor. Set your idle speed as you would, and take note of your initial number.

This is your new initial advance. You should never have to mess with your timing again. From here, you can tune. Play with advance spring-rates to dial in your curve, play with different vacuum advance cans to play with your curve.

Your timing it idle is somewhat irrelevant - it's simply a function of your total advance. This is the proper and accurate way to set your total advance without putting a strain on your motor.

Regarding idle - 850 seems fine with an automatic. Again, the proper way to set idle speed, idle mixture, etc. would be to put your car in D or R, chuck the wheels, put on the emergency brake, and set that way.

Set your load-idle at the proper settings (between 550-650 RPM if your motor can do it). Check your timing at this speed, and set your idle mixture screws at this speed. THIS is where your car will spend most of it's idle time when you're driving the car, and I've never understood why people set these things in Neutral since the car spends no time in neutral.

Again, setting to 550-650 in D or R, take note of what your idle speed is when you go into Neutral. Now you know what your correct settings are, and can determine if you have too much or too little stall on your torque convertor.

Good luck, keep us posted!