Hello,

I have a mildly built 360 in my 69 Valiant with MP electronic ignition. About a year ago, I was driving and the car suddenly backfired badly through the carb and then stalled. Luckily, I was a mile from the house and was able to get it fired again long enough to limp home. The car would idle but had no power and stalled when I released the clutch unless I kept the rpms high. It felt like I had dropped a couple cylinders but the idle sounded fine. As soon as I got in front of my house, it quit. I tried to restart it and it seemed to fire but then immediately cut off. My first instinct was to check all electrical/ignition components, which I have done, but haven't had any luck. I swapped out the cap, rotor, wires, orange box, and finally the distributor. I can get the car to start up and idle, but it still has no power when you release the clutch and backfires through the carb and exhaust. The timing checks out fine when idling and all my grounds are fine as well. When I fired it up today, a bunch of fluffy black material came flying out the tailpipes and the carb caught on fire. Any thoughts on what could be wrong? I am worried it might be a valvetrain issue, but wanted to see if anyone had other ideas.

Thanks for the help!