Not such a dumb question. You might want to vent it to below battery bracket, but that means finding a fitting for the hole and a piece of tube. Try Walmart for a closed one at a reasonable price.
In SD, I doubt you'll ever need the warm air feed. I'd close it off completely and see if you can find a used sender unit if you really feel the need. I may have one lying around from my E3 days, but Carl Nelson might have something.
If memory serves, there should be a slight gap between fast idle screw and the fast idle cam when the choke is off (fully open). For cold start, pressing pedal down at least half way allows choke flaps to snap closed, which turns fast idle cam to higher step.
have you checked to make sure choke is working? With cold car, pressing gas pedal to floor should cause choke plates to snap shut and fast idle cam to engage. Adlust by turning choke housing.
A quick test of rough timing setting can be done by turning engine around to TDC for #1 then pull dist cap. Rotor should be under the #1 wire terminal. You can set what's called "static" timing using a 12V test light or voltmeter. That procedure is described in the manual. You set #1 to fire at TDC to get car running. But if timing is way out, you'll often get spitting and backfiring. I'm no tii expert, but arent you supposed to sync the pump too?