Car lost power, now idles low/won't stay running, Need help ASAP Options

[Mockmaw]

Well, my car is currently stuck in Kettleman City, broke down on my brother in the process of bringing it back to the Bay Area.

So.. after driving for several hours, the car began losing power (rpm still up there, just little to no power output.) He made it to the gas station right as the car died. Now the car will start with a little effort (that is, pressing the gas pedal), but idles very low before dying. Brother claims that there was a strange, repetitive noise when the engine was losing power.. similar to a pinging noise.

I'm about to embark on the 220 mile trip down there to see if I can figure something out. I'm beyond agitated as I just took the car to the shop to take care of a few oil leaks. Aside from the leaks, the engine ran beautifully.. since getting it back from the shop, it's been a real pain in the ass. Took it back to them, apparently they took care of the problem.. I guess they didn't. So what could have become f**ked in the last couple weeks? It's not fair for me to pin the blame on the shop, but I can't feel but cheated that the car ran perfectly before I sent it in.

So what can I do? What should I be looking for? I realize this is a hasty post and probably lacks some crucial details, so please ask for clarification where needed and I'll do my best.

[Mockmaw]

Okay, so I'm conducting a job interview in 4 minutes, so I'll give the short of what happened.

Took the 3.5 hour trip down to Kettleman City the other night to help my brother out. After some diagnosis I found that not all the cylinders were firing (tested by removing spark plug wires from the distributor cap.) Found out that one spark plug was loose (strange) and I think my plug wires need replacement (and time to buy that pertronix too?) So I got it running on all 4 cylinders, and head out to continue the rest of the trip. I drove the Porsche, brother followed in the Probe.

The car drove poorly, still felt sluggish, and it makes a strange 'flapping noise' (for lack of a better term) for the first 2 seconds or so that the accelerator is pressed. Does that sound familiar to anyone?

Got the car back to Berkeley.. I discover that it's burning oil (blue-gray smoke out the tailpipe _only_ on acceleration) and that the car has a pretty major oil leak: how frustrating, I just paid the shop to take care of the oil leaks.. now the car is running poorly, it's still leaking, and it's 500 miles from the guy who attempted the repair. I know, I know.. old cars have a tendency to do this.

So, I've deduced the following so far:

1. The car's still leaking, I can crawl underneath to find out where, but I'm pretty sure I'm just going to need to take it back home and have the guy take a look at it again.

2. I believe that the car is burning oil, but only when the gas pedal is depressed (acceleration).. can anyone offer any insight as to what may be the cause of this? The smoke is definitely coming out of the tailpipe (not from the outside of the heat exchangers.)

3. I'm experiencing that 'flapping' noise during the first 2 seconds of acceleration. I have no clue what this may be.. I'm currently looking through forum posts for anything that may pertain to this.

4. The engine runs rough at times but I'm fairly certain that this is an ignition problem.. especially because the tach bounces are considerably during the times when the engine feels 'rough'. That may be a points problem? But the points were just replaced.

That's all I can say for now, any advice would be great, and thanks for everyone that helped me out over the weekend!