Man, I tried to reply like three times here and I keep losing my text.

Anyway, the car is running. I took it out for a ride today for the first time in over a year. Seems to run OK, gets up and goes. Surprised myself!

Fuel is a mix of pump 93/Cam 2 100 unleaded. It will run on 93 but I can get the Cam 2 at the pump down the road from my house so I try to keep at least 5 gallons of it in there.

Plugs are at .050" cause I thought it would help to promote more spark energy. Dunno, I guess I could try .035" on my next set of plugs. Almost everything I've read over the years about plug gaps says .045-.060" is what you want. I think advancing the timing and going to a hotter plug is really what helped.

When I did the compression test, I thought I might have a roasted valve in the #5 cylinder but I'm not really sure. I don't have a leak down tester. (on my list) Could be bad but seems to run OK anyway.

I changed the oil which I think helped with compression. The old oil was thin and black. I'll probably be rebuilding this engine sooner than later.

Thanks again for the tips, this has been helpful.