Ok, well doing what I can right now...the problem has gone away.

I turned down the timing to 17 initial and 35 total. (18 mechnical advance) and I pulled the coil to test the resistance and it was out of spec with what it should be so I picked up a MSD blaster 2.

Left the plugs that were in it and took it for a drive. Ran great with no popping out of the exhaust and the surging went away also.

So it looks like a big part of problem was a bad coil!

I will be ordering a jet kit to see if I can fine tune it more...but the main issue seems to be fixed now. (bad coil!)

THe coil was pretty new (only in the car for a week)....just an auto part store stock replacement. Other than it just being a piece of junk out of the box, what could cause the coil to go bad? I checked and with the car running I have 6.8 volts at the coil..so it doesnt seem to be getting too many volts.

I am pretty sure that the MSD blaster doesn't even need a ballast when using the ready to run distributor...? (I already 12 volts directly to the distributor) Would piping the a full 12 volts to the coil give me better spark?

THanks all!