I'm thinking that either my timing light is junk (came from harbor freight) and/or the dizzy does not advance properly.

The dizzy does spring back from an advance twist but not with much "spring" and kinda slowly. I've hesitated to take it apart and investigate the condition of the weights since I have no good backup dizzy to use.

I used to be able to set idle with my timing light easily, but this has been a real PITA. Even at low idle the light can hardly find the marks. They only appear at one particular idle speed. My guess is about 1500 rpms. The cheap light seems to be nearing the end of it's life...

I've been setting the timing static using the Ron Kwas method putting it at 16 btdc. There's a nice big nick in the pulley at that point.

I've always pulled the #1 plug to find TDC. Although back in the winter, I did not realize I was not using the compression stroke so everything was 180 off. I feel fairly competent about that now.