Well, after I put the seals in and reassembled the engine covers, I went to start her up. After a few kicks it started and seemed like it was going to run fine. I let it idle for a while and it smoked a ton less than it had before. After it was good and warm, I took it for a spin down the block. Everything was going great until all of a sudden it started to bog really bad. I gave it some gas too keep it alive and after a second it bogged down again and died. After that I couldn't get it started for the rest of the night.

The next day it started right up, and then promptly died again. It did this a couple times until it just wouldn't start at all. Think it was possibly a timing issue (due to a nasty occasional kickback and backfiring), I checked out the woodruff key which looked fine. The only thing I can think of is maybe a bad ground. The spark plug looked good and I put a new one in for good measure. If anyone can point me in some direction, any direction, it would be greatly appreciated.