New 350 into my 94 k1500 tbi, timing question.

[danpro]

Ok so my 350tbi was getting old, burning some oil, low on compression, time for a rebuild. Well, jegs had a nice crate 350 for cheap, so I bought it without doing my research... swapped the motor in, all went well, even adapting the tbi intake for the old non-tbi heads, however I had this constant stutter just off idle when applying light throttle. Changed the egr and it helped TREMENDOUSLY but still was not completely gone. Checked everything from fuel pressure to coolant temp sensor to injectors to vacuum leaks to knock sensor to distributor, everything was working as it should. My buddy came over one night and we got to talking about camshafts in his car and how he was having some tuning issues because his new cams were much larger than his old ones (in terms of duration). Went onto jegs website and looked at the crate 350 I bought... the one they have for $1500. The cam in it is flat tappet cam with 194/202 duration at 0.05". Factory GM cam for the tbi engine is 165/175 duration at 0.05". So i unplugged my tan/black wire, and set the base timing to around 6 or 8 degrees btdc. Shut down the truck, plugged the wire back in and man did she ever run like a champ. Before this with the timing set at 0, if i was cruising and i hit the gas hard it would almost stall. With the timing set to 6btdc with wire unplugged (dont know what it runs now with wire plugged back in but id assume somewhere around 15) i can spin tires will moving! My crank time even went down from around 3-5 seconds to about 1 or 2. So my question is, are my findings right? Was changing the timing the issue because of the bigger cam? Or was this a bandaid solution that covers the problem. I dont have huge experience with computer controlled distributors and im mainly asking because its a brand new engine and I'd hate for detonation to happen.. even though theres a knock sensor. Also if what i did was correct, would the total timing still be at a maximum around the stock spec? Or by changing the "0" have i also changed the total timing number? Thanks for the help.