Finally got our rig running correctly

Yep, I can remember back in the early CA smog check days, they always retarded the timing to pass specs, and they always ran terrible on the way home from the smog shop. But it was a known and expected thing, and nothing that a timing advance din't fix. And sometimes you had to hit the carb air screws to get a decent idle too.
Thank God I was able to get out of that state to where we don't have any smog, or checks !