Are you confusing back firing with dieseling perhaps. A backfire is loud report whereas dieseling sounds like a rough running engine and may quit with sort of a muffled "puff". Dieseling is generally due to idle speed set too high or not being allowed to idle for awhile after a long high speed run before being shut down.
Agreed +
-Overheating from blocked coolant passage
-Overheating from carb set too lean
-Incorrect octane i.e. 87 octane fuel in a high compression engine