69 spider veloce back fires!!

["David Bokaie" <bokaie@domain.elided>]

Hi Guys,

In the past couple of months, I started to renew my relationship with my 69
spider.  For the past few years the car was sitting mostly in the garage
collecting spider webs!!

Below is the list of things that I have done to the car in the past couple
of months:

1- Replace clutch master/slave cylinder
2- Replace battery
3- Tune up stuff:
	Replace wires/plugs
	Distributor Rotor (new cap was defective!!)
	Points and condenser
4- Replace water pump (no overheating but was making lots of noise)
5- replace Tires last week
6- Fixed the tail lights!!
7- Oil change, Clutch/brake fluid flush

Yesterday, driving the spider top down, I was on my way to Alfa parts in
Berkeley (CA) to pickup the "brake fluid pressurize" to bleed the brake
system when the car was starting to miss a bit.  Prior to that the car was
running great.  Better than anytime in the past 13 years that I have owned
the car.  Things started getting worse and the engine started to back fire
in big way and lost engine power.  Fortunely the car made it back home.  I
Let the car and myself cool down before restarting the car.  The engine
fired right up and as it the engine got warmer, the back fires came back
with vengeance.  Through this episode, engine did NOT overheat!  In the
morning before my drive,  I noticed the exhaust sound changed a little bit.
Got milder!  As part of debugging this, I checked the compression and all
cylinders were in 110-120 psi region.  Numbers were pretty consistent with
previous reading of 2 months back.  Spark plugs were mostly fouled.
Cleaning them did not fix the problem.  The exhaust sound is completely
different and it sounds like I have a leak in section of muffler close to
the gearbox.

Given the backfire and loss of power, I am thinking that one or more have
valves are burned out.  If so, does that explain NO change in the
compression.   I have never dealt with a car with a burned valve...

Alternatively, can a big exhaust leak cause the back fires and loss of
power.

Given the recent tune-up, is it possible that the ignition wires or other
new components in the ignition system is causing this.   I can see the loss
of power but unless the timing has changed I can not explain the back fire.

Bottom line is that I could use your help!!!

Thanks,

David

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