The throttle body fitting pointing back toward the left-rear of the car (this is a 2.0, right?) is the retard fitting. The advance fitting points toward the distributor. This is what Porsche (VW, Karmann, whomever) did for many/most of the 74+ cars. It was probably cheaper to keep using the same dashpot and simply not machine and install the fitting on the throttle body, when they decided to remove the vacuum advance from the cars.
Try using a smaller hole in the plug.
Yes, 32 degrees is right around that big web. But the correct timing for a stock 2.0 engine is 27 deg BTDC at 3500 RPM (distributor vacuum hoses disconnected). Overly-advanced timing will raise your idle RPM. In fact, I've been able to set my timing after messing with the distributor simply by listening to the idle speed--when I got the distributor rotated to where the idle speed was where it used to be, the timing was just about spot-on. I checked it with a timing light, of course, and found that I was almost exactly on.
(Maybe I was just lucky...)
--DD