Engine starts fine cold, dies when warm

'74 Super Beetle, carbed with an Empi 34-PICT-3 and an 009 distributor (neither my choice, came with the car).

Bought it, drove for a while, and it started leaking pretty heavily from around the crank pulley. Checked oil pressure relief, hoses to air cleaner, and that I didn't have a sand-seal pulley without a seal. Did a compression test, determined it needed rings. Re-ringed. Am pretty sure rings seated, but I'd be willing to accept that as an explanation if someone can justify it.

A few days later, was driving to airport, car started to slowly lose power, eventually stopping and refusing to restart. Thought I'd screwed the pooch, but compression test came out okay. Discovered that the damned nut that holds the fast idle cam had fallen off, the little hook had dropped off, and the butterfly had closed, starving the engine of air. Fixed that, car fired up and seemed to run fine. At the same time, replaced a very loud header with a stock muffler. (This is a convertible, loud pipes make it pretty unpleasant.)

Drove about 10 miles. Near the end of that, downshifted and started to lose power, followed by major oil smoke. Stopped, seems like it's blowing from behind the crank pulley again. Checked the butterfly just in case, seems to be fine. However, seems that underside of the butterfly had some oil on it, like there was oil in the intake. Car refused to restart.

Got it towed home, and decided for a lark to see if it would fire. It did, and seemed to run fine. Decided to do a short test drive to see what would happen. Decent power, all seems right with the world. About 3/4 of a mile from home, starts to lose power and some minor oil smoke. Dies, refuses to restart. I push it home.

Anyone have any ideas on this one?

Does the carb have a fuel shut-off on it? Have seen these get warm and fail shutting the fuel off. Maybe swap coils if you can, and try adjusting the choke maybe even disconnect the 12v from the choke as well. The smoke is weird, only thing I can see on that would be the heads heating up and loosing the compression when they seperate from the jugs. Drive it close to home till it dies and do a quick compression check while its failing.

Hmm. Never had that same issue with the fuel shut-off, but I'll check that. Don't have a spare coil, but they're not pricy, so maybe I'll grab one.

I think you're on the right track with the heads, to be honest, that's the only reason I can figure for the smoke. I'll definitely try that.

Did you retorque the heads after you pulled them?
I mean after the engine is ran for a period of like 30 minutes, they need to be retorqued.
Sucks about the rings.

KC

No, sure didn't retorque, but I'll do that while the engine is out!