Update:

I took my car to a friend of mine who builds hot rods. He suggested that we change out the power valve in the Holley Carburetor, which we did.

I checked and the accelerator pump is squirting. There is no play in the distributor and the vacuum advance appears to be working properly.

We then changed out fuel filter, points for pertronix igniter, and a flame thrower coil, got out the timing light and adjusted the timing. We adjusted the timing from 0 advance to 10deg advance, did have something strange happen there. The plug wire to the #1 cylinder would only fire when pulled out of the distributor. I could hold it just above the distributor and it would fire like crazy, but when plugged in it wouldn’t fire the timing light? Regardless the car is still backfiring through the carburetor. But I think I have a bigger problem now.

While we were adjusting the timing, I started hearing a loud squeaking or chirping that seems to come from approximately the #4 cylinder.

I’m guessing something is going wrong in that head??

When it rains it pours!!!