Well, don't want to dump on the OP's thread here to discuss my project much . . . but I don't know what to tell you? My big block actually ran on the factory code without the nonsense you have described. Now, granted, not very well, but it ran. And, Kevin ran his 455 smog motor off a Y ECM with virtually the same carb mods. Without mods to the primary side of the carb yet, I had to have the idle screw so far in that the primaries were cracked open just to get it to idle. But, to get started modding the code, I went and drove it on factory code just to get a laptop dump on where we were at with it? Light throttle was horribly rough but no popping, backfiring, etc as you have described. And, when it tried to go into lean burn on the H/W, that instantly went ping city on the factory code so just long enough to get data and I popped it down into third and went back home to send Kevin the dump. The first chip was a lot better and I had modded the primary side of the carb and had gotten my new secondary rods by the time I had his first chip. [Yes, I know the secondary rods have nothing to do with closed loop . . .] We went through just 3 chips to get where it's at today. Truthfully, I was happy with chip 2 but Kevin wasn't. And, he was right, he got it even better along with the pcv mod I mentioned earlier.
Saying "retarded amount of advance, like 60 degrees"? I assume you mean it's "retarded" [or stupid] to have that much advance as opposed to "retarded timing"? Hey we still have like [sorry, it's been over 10 years] but I'm pretty sure 63 maybe 64 degrees max advance during lean burn in 4th and lock up but just had to richen the mixture slightly for the additional cubes and CR which took me from 23-25mpg with the 307 down to just 18-20mpg but that ain't bad for a big block with a CCC on top. Beyond that, the thing runs just fuel injection snappy . . . though frankly I've had it scattered long enough I've almost forgotten what it's like to drive . . . Almost!
EDIT: And, you are correct, I did not and do not have a knock sensor.