What advance curve, straight line or hop out?

I just got an advance tuning kit for the mallory dist. I have had a hard time getting the motor running right so I figured I'd tune the dist properly. First of all here are the specs on the motor.

355 chevy
10-11:1 compression, not sure
camelback heads
long tube headers
a pretty lopey camshaft, don't know the specs though
weiand tunnel ram intake
dual holley mech secondary (9776) 450cfm carbs
2800 stall th350 trans
10* vacuum at idle

I was going to set the timing at 18* inital and 38* total. The tuning kit says I could either set the advance to come in as a straight line where a smooth linear advance is required throughout the engine operating RPM, or a Hop-Out curve where a lot of advance is required early and a more gradual advance through the rest of the engine operating RPM happends. Is one better than the other for my application? Does 18* inital and 38* advanced sound like a good spot to set the timing?