Question about pinging?

I'm not sure what pinging is exactly but I thought it had to deal with the Timing being off or not gas/gas firing at the wrong time which is caused by the timing being off. Now, I just recently bought a brand new distributor. I took it off and put it back on exactly how it was. When I started the car up it ran like shit. I checked for the red mark and it was like 2 inches off which was really strange. So I figured I just needed to adjust the dizzy. I did and I couldn't move it anymore to get it lined up with the red mark. It was still like and inch off. So I took it down to a local garage that is well known. They said the timing was to be set between 12degrees and 16degress. So they set it at 14 degrees. Now the other part, my headgasket went awhile ago, oil in radiator. Poped head back on and never flushed radiator fully. Now I just gave it a really really good flushing about a week ago and it's been coming up clean so far as I can see so maybe my head isn't warped. But if it is warped will this cause the motor to ping? It seems to only ping when I lay on it and it smokes a little white and feels like the car has lost some power. I need some comments on this.

pinging is usually caused by pre-detonation due to timing being too far off, commonly advanced. Also low grade gas can cause pinging because all the gas in the combustion chamber to ignite by itself before or after the spark.

Now, which red mark are you talking about? the one on the crank pulley? The mark that should be in relation to the V on the belt cover should be the white one on the crank pulley to be at TDC.

The only way to check to see if your head is warped/blown headgasket is to do a compression test. Due to you saying that your exhaust smokes a little "white" and loss of power is a direct lead to coolant being burned and compression loss in one or more of the cylinders.

pinging = detonation usuallly running lean or too low a grade of gas try running premium that should clear it up

Yup, Pinging equals detonation. And detonation, by definition, is when the gases in the cylinder explode before the piston has reached the top of its travel...which is velly, velly bad.
Having the explosion take place when the piston still has to come up before it can go back down puts tremendous stress on your connecting rod...poor thing.
Our cars are designed to burn low-grade fuel (Shut up, Setanta, we know those of you down under are privileged with octane levels over 95), so yours should NOT be pinging, even if you're burning the cheap stuff. (In New Mexico, that's 86 octane...91 is as high as we get...93 in Texas...except for race fuel)
Higher octane fuel may help, but it's not solving the problem. I do hope you manage to get it properly timed.
Flunky

Nah, I tried high octane 94 with some Octance booster. It still pings. The timing is off by about 2cm. And my valves are tapping like all hell. I really dont have time or the risk to mess around with it right now so I got a scheduled timing/valve adjustment set up Friday morning. I'ts just weird cause before the car use to run rich becaue the cat. converter is hollowed out. So why would it run lean? Lol, I dont know. But if after friday this still insnt resloved I'm going to look into a getting a few fuel system upgrades.