I noticed there's no rules for this game. I saw some different timing methods on the LB's runs.

I would be nice to have some rules on when to start and finish the timer.

I just made an autosplitter that starts the timer as soon as mario appears on the screen on level 1 and splits as soon as you take the last pipe of every level.
It uses a "Level Clear" memory address that turns 1 when you beat a level and goes back to 0 when the next level starts.

I feel timing should start as soon as Mario appears. I only did -2 seconds because that's what Eon did.

I can give you the autosplitter if you want to test it and see if it is a good timing method

Sure, I'll give it test.