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If the B377 ran the basic design of the B-29, engine, wing & subsystems et cetera then why the issues of reliability tied to the engines?
I thought they had millions of miles accumulated during the war?

I feel like I am missing something.

Oh, is there a B377 configurator similar to the other A2A in my stable?
I found the input configuator but nothing to set up a GPS.

The 377 used R-4360's, the B-29 used R-3350's.

Engine fires and a tendency to foul plugs?
Is one linked to the other?

The issue with the B377 was actually more the props. The original Curtis Electric props had a bad reputation of "running away", which was quite spectacularly recorded in the saga of Pan Am Flight 6, which was a successful ditching because of lessons learned from another run-away propeller that occurred the year prior on Pan Am Flight 26.

Additionally, the R4360 was still a very new engine when the B377 entered service, having only seen limited use during the war powering experimental aircraft with none seeing production until after the end of the war. The engine was developed as a competitor to the R3350 when that engine began having its teething problems (fires mainly, which destroyed on only the B-29 prototype, but also the Martin JRM Mars prototype, and several other testbed aircraft not to mention many in-service B-29s), but its larger size meant that any aircraft would need to be redesigned for it to fit, not an easy proposition. So new prototypes began using the R4360 over the R3350 but any "in production" aircraft continued with the R3350. The R4360 in service was a maintenance hog (mainly because of the number of spark plugs and associated wiring), but it was as or more reliable than its contemporary engines (including the R2800) once maintenance forces got their heads around how to care for the engines.

The R3350, once developed into the later versions of the non-Turbocompound engine and later the Turbocompound versions became just as reliable, but those early teething and metallurgy problems that led to the fires also greatly hurt its reputation among post-war airline pilots, many of whom flew B-29s and other early-R3350 powered aircraft.