As mentioned in other posts, you need to get your distributor recurved if you have removed the EGR system during the desmog. Your timing is advancing to much to fast. Do a search about the recurve and you will understand better what is going on.I’m currently hearing this.
I had my 60 desmogged by Torfab, and after I got it back heard a pretty gnarley pinging at any load above 2k rpm. Took it back and they retimed it and it still pinged but not as bad. I ran across this comment and put premium gas in it from empty, and it definitely doesn’t ping anymore at low speeds (still pings at 50+ mph under moderate load), and I noticed a pretty decent power increase. Does this have anything to do with the distributor? Tor mentioned it might be a carb issue.