This is actually what you are supposed to do, but I see that bit of information is difficult to discern from the OP. I will update that. When you add it to your setupVars.conf, that address will be used next time you update the ad lists, and thus used by your Pi-hole, preventing the timeouts.
Note that within the FTLDNS beta testing branches, there is a new option available that allows NXDOMAIN blocking. This should solve all these problems if you're willing to try it out.
Just wanted to give some feedback on the new FTLDNS branch which I'm now running as my main DNS.
After changing to BLOCKINGMODE=NXDOMAIN (it took me a while to locate the readme for this, which if anyone else needs is here: https://github.com/pi-hole/FTL/blob/FTLDNS/README.md ) I'm finding that unexplained delays in page loading have gone and that everything is now loading really quickly. For me personally the NXDOMAIN solution seems preferable to the previous pihole IP solution.
I inserted the BLOCKINGMODE=NXDOMAIN into my /etc/pihole/pihole-FTL.conf and restarted the FTL-Service. But there is no change to recognize. A ping to a blocked DNS-name still resolved to the local IP.
[i] Checking for updates...
[i] Pi-hole Core: up to date
[i] Web Interface: up to date
curl: (22) The requested URL returned error: 404 Not Found
[i] FTL: update available
[i] Downloading and Installing FTL...curl: (22) The requested URL returned error: 404 Not Found
[✗] Downloading and Installing FTL
Error: URL not found
[✗] FTL Engine not installed.
[i] Restarting services...
I can't advise on that, but for me (checked just now):
pi@RPi3-DNS:~ $ pihole -up
[i] Checking for updates...
[i] Pi-hole Core: up to date
[i] Web Interface: up to date
[i] FTL: up to date
[✓] Everything is up to date!
You're probably on a branch that no longer exists. Try running pihole checkout ftl FTLDNS to get back on a main branch. Then try the pihole -up again to make sure you have the latest.
Really weird. Your instructions were great, but for some reason, now the https test page loads instead of being blocked. Before, it was blocked, but it took some time. So I read this thread in hopes of speeding things up. Why would I be able to get to the https site after implementing this? I checked the blacklist and the test site is indeed included: