G'day guys

Last few months, I've been working on the ek9, restoring most components in the engine bay and fuel system.

Now the part where I get confused is,

Ill go and set my ignition timing with a gun to the recommended specifications of 16 degrees

When I take it for a drive, hesitates on acceleration and lags very bad with air conditioner on( basically struggles of the line)

So the car itself hit over 100 thousand and I did a major service, did the timin belt, all belts, new distributor, new plugs etc etc, only thing I haven't changed is the leads ( ngk blues and works fine I think)

When it was at 16 I would get hesitation and that tinny pinging noise ( like rice on foil noise) so I upped the timin to around 17-18degrees now and it does it slightly

What I want to know is why is it still making that noise under light load? (3-4k rpm?)

Also my old dizzy was making this ticking noise from under the cap, thought DIZZY was dead so I replaced it, still makes that ticking noise only when cold, when cold also takes about 10-15 seconds to start

If someone can help, it'll be great! Might have done it wrong, or maybe something is dead

Kenny