Help Troubleshooting

OK, I'm one of the weenies who loves owning a Speedster replica but has minimal wrenching skills. Some may recall that after I had the valves on my CB 1915cc adjusted last summer at around 1000 miles it chuffed and poofed when cold. The tech that worked on it said the old carbureted 911s did the same thing and blamed it on valve overlap. Because it idled fine and had normal power, I have continued to drive it without a re-adjustment. The problem was minimal once the motor is warmed up.
So yesterday I drove a couple of miles at low speed to my son's baseball practice. When I started it up about twenty minutes later the motor behaved very differently. The chuffing and poofing has worsened and the car has a definite misfire and it backfires out the exhaust. I drove it again briefly this afternoon with the same problem. The car is way down on power and is clearly missing, even at high RPMs. So, gentlemen, where do I start?
PS to Scott S. I'll forward my address if you can convince your brother to come over and deal with this ; )

Rich, you've got mail.

The car has sat since my first post, Portland weather being what it is and my schedule not allowing me to be to upset about it. So I just started to peek inside and what do I notice but the supply-side fuel filter. OH MY GAWD! The thing was loaded with what appears to be rust sediment. If any of this stuff got into the carbs, it's no wonder the motor has run so poorly. The filter on the downstream side of the pump is an aluminum canister, so I can't see if it is similarly polluted, and only clear gasoline spilled out, but I'm on my way to the store to buy replacements for both. Do you suppose a tankful of fuel system cleaner will work on the carbs, or do I need to clean the jets by hand?

I'd recommend cleaning the jets by hand, but you could always experiment. It sounds like you got hit with the dreaded "Chinese gas tank grunge" like I did. Try the cleaner first, and drive the heck out of it. If 50-100 miles doesn't clean it out, pull the jets and clean 'em. It's not as scary as it sounds.

If it reoccurs, you may have to replace both filters again, annd some of your fuel lines as they may have become coated inside. Again, not as scary as it sounds. As a last resort, have your tank chemically cleaned inside, replace the filters again, along with the fuel lines, and clean the jets. Yeah, I know it's a pain, but when they sit, the coating in these tanks dissolves into the gas and can clog the small passages. Hopefully you can solve it with new filters and a can of Techron. The key is to drive it regularly. Since I went through this a few months back, feel free to email or call with questions.

Changed the filters, added some fuel treatment, and went for a ride. Immediate improvement.
So I'm driving around to get the fuel treatment circulating and decide to take a side road I'd never driven. Turns out it's a winding, fairly narrow residential street. I slow way down, idling along in 2nd. I hear an odd noise, that I think I feel also, so I stop and look all around under the car and engine compartment. No loose parts or things lying on the ground. I hop back in and just a few feet farther a sort of a clank and bump. Out again to fine the LR wheel askew. I pull the hubcap to find three lug bolts in the hubcap and the fourth backed most of the way off. Luckily with my slow speed the wheel didn't come completely off and it did no body damage. I wasn't too far from home, so I called my wife and asked her to grab the floor jack (that I just bought about a week ago and hadn't taken out of the box) and the top tray of my toolbox. The lugs looked good, as did the threads in the drum, except for one that lost some metal at the edge of the hole. Put the wheel back on and checked the right side lugs and headed for home. (The front wheels were off for balancing last Fall, and I watched them go back on, so I didn't think it necessary to check them.) I had never thought to check the lugs in the 2000 miles I've had the car. For all four to come loose seems odd to me. Dunno what would have happened if the road was the high speed curvy one I thought it was. Probably would have had complete wheel separation, fiberglass damage, and who knows what else. Quite an adventure that seems to have ended well. My motor is running well now with just a little bit of the pooting it's had since the valve adjustment. There was no sign of crud in the new filter.

Play the lottery, it's your lucky day.

After rotating the tires on my Dodge dually, I had the rear set of dual wheels come loose after rotating tires 3,000 ago, no reason for that to happen, but it did ...way expensive to replace all pressed in studs and two rimsthat had egg shaped stud holes. Now I constantly re-torque the wheels.

Lucky? Hoo-WEEE!
I'm taking Rich to VEGAS!

And Rich, that sound you hear is everybody quietly sneaking out to their garages to check their lug nuts ...

Glad to hear it was an easy fix, Rich. Now drive that puppy!

A few years ago, I followed a rapidly moving vintage Mercedes sedan onto a long, fast freeway ramp. Halfway through the ramp, the right rear axle shaft - complete with wheel attached - suddenly departed the Mercedes. The wildly whipping and bouncing axle reminded me of the chariot race in Ben Hur. The Mercedes came to a controlled stop on the shoulder. I actually stopped and collected his wheel and axle, and parked behind him. One of the first things he said was, "I restored it myself, and that's the second time that same failure has occured." I shoulda got his name, so I could avoid next him next time!

David - that story and your comment made me laugh out loud! Too funny!