Hope they fix it but if not...

[Gerry A.]

A couple of days ago I had an interesting experience. was going on the freeway, shifted from first to second, was headed for third at somewhere around 85 maybe 90 or so. when I put in the clutch the throttle stuck wide open, the tack hit about 6000 and in the blink of an eye the engine locked up, rear end locked and my wife and I were in for a wild ride with a camper in front and a semi truck behind us.. Well that incident prompted the removal of the engine from the car and the discovery of perhaps the cause of the lock-up. My McCloud clutch looked like someone had pulled the pin on a grenade, tossed it into the scatter shield and then put the engine back on. Ok so much for the lock-up reason (most likely). This brings me to my real question.. ever since the car was brandy newbie it has been backfiring through the exhaust, both sides. It started out only at high RPM then later on doing it even starting out at stoplights. It made no difference cold or hot. I did have a speed demon 650 on it originally but due to this latest incident I've finally talked them into putting a holley 750 with mechanical secondaries on it.. anyway, we replaced the carb twice, ignition system. checked and re-checked the timing. but nothing we did seemed to matter, it still backfired like a machine gun. In addition to this it keeps blowing oil from nearly every gasket and orfice in the engine including the dipstick tube. All the bolts have been check and seals and gaskets replaced several times but it appears that the crankcase is being pressurized somehow.. I'm convinced that it's in the valve train somewhere but am having trouble convincing others of the same. My question is this... could I be right? I'm thinking maybe cam or valves that aren't seating or maybe even floating. If I'm not correct what could it be.. I'm getting very frustrated and would like to finally solve this mystery. I really love the car but I think it's been in the shop more than it's been in my garage. Please someone help me with this so i can take the answer to Brian and we can once and for all get her running like she should be...
thanks.