[rich weyand]

That all sounds pretty good. Couple tweaks, maybe. For automatic, stock idle setting is 700 rpm. You don't say what kind of plugs you are running, but they should be ACDelco R45TS or Autolite 24. Timing at 16* BTDC will give you more bottom-end performance, and should not cause knocking. As long as oil pressure is 10 psi per thousand RPM, you're good. Sounds like going to 15W40 is a good move to ensure that. You should probably add zinc to any modern oil you use, such as one bottle of ZDDPPlus per oil change.