If you know someone with a timing light, you could borrow it. Otherwise, I purchased mine for $15 on ebay.
I'm not saying your timing is off, it was just a guess. If it were set a TDC or close to it though, a normal side-effect would be that at low rpms in a tall gear like 4th or 5th, if you floor it and then slowly let up on the gas pedal, the acceleration will actually pick up just a bit as you begin to give it less gas. Also, the distributor would be cocked pretty much all the way towards the firewall.