I have an 87 TII. I believe I blew my engine, it made a loud backfire noise in the engine bay when it was under heavy load. The car seemed to run fine untill I turned it off. Then she would start, but shortly die. I did a compression test, and the rear rotor read about 35-35-10. Front was about 35 on all sides(all these numbers are rough, not sure if Im doing the comp test right). Im wondering if the car should idle with these compression numbers? Could I have blown out a side seal? Should I try using that atf trick as a last resort? Any feedback would be appreciated.

With that low of compression you got issues.

yea... if you had 90psi on each face you are on the boarderline.but you have30.....

So 30psi = bad engine