You need a manual. The best is the green Volvo manual that shows up
on ebay from time to time.
Haynes or Bentley are OK.
If someone offers you a Chilton manual, tell them "Thanks, but no thanks!",
turn and walk swiftly away.
--
George Downs, Bartlesville, Oklahoma, Central US

You can get a hand-held tach/dwell meter from someplace like autozone for almost lunch money (Ok, maybe twice lunch money or nice dinner money for a decent one).
While you are there, get yourself everything for a tune-up and a manual (if you don't already have one). When something is out of whack it is a VERY good idea to perform a full tune-up. The reason is three-fold.
1) You will likely fix the problem in the course of the tune-up.
2) You will become acquainted with your car in a way that can only be desribed as "intimate." Learning what wears, how it looks (both bad and good) and what is likely to cause trouble in the future.
3) You will have eliminated most of the common areas of trouble so that a real effort can be made toward trouble-shooting (if you still have a problem).

Mike!

If your car has a B16 engine (which it probably doesn't) you would check the timing through a hole in the bellhousing. If your car has a B18 or B20 engine the timing is checed on the crankshaft pulley like Phil said.

I have seen lots of people talk about idle speeds

850-900 rpm is comfortable.

how do you know? my car does not have a tach

A tach is a good way to know. You can buy/borrow a dwell/tach meter or mount a tach in the car.

is it easy to add a tach?

Yes. Finding a graceful way to mount an aftermarket tach is the hard part. Other'n that, it's just a few wires to hook up.

my car seems to idle too fast and I would like to conserve gas

Idling speed won't have much impact on economy.

it also has a terrible knock ping and run on, too fast an idle, wrong gas? wrong timing?

All possible factors, as well as wrong fuel/air mixture.

how do you check the timing? there does not seem to be a timing hole for the flywheel in the back of the engine

Timing marks are on the crank pulley.