[mr0077]

Sounds like someone "fixed" your dizzy, or it has a problem (broken advance spring or sticky mech advance).

For street use you ought to have about 20 degrees of mechanical advance (some like less, some like more), but ten isn't enough IMHO...That would give you about 12* initial, 32-35* total, all in by 2500 RPM. If you had those appr. settings, you could/should set it at full advance (mine likes 36* total), and let the initial be whatever it is (just remember it so you can set it at idle).
With all that, you could then hook up the vac advance and should be okay (but listen for pinging or rattle like you said).

The MSD billit and the Ford Petronix are popular replacement distributors.