1985 Ford Bronco popping noise and bogging down

Just purchased this vehicle for a thousand bucks, so I'm really green on it and don't know much. So when driving it home after purchasing, when I got it on the highway around 45 - 50 mph it started to make a pop pop popping sound, almost like a backfire but from under the hood on the driver side kinda, it was fairly constant, kinda how popcorn pops except loud. When I got up around 65 to 70mph I tried to pass a trucker with the slightest of up hill and it kinda bogged down and wouldn't go any faster and started to go slower, until I got back to the slight downhill side of the hill. Also after stopping it seemed like I smelled gas a little like when a rig is fludded. The guy I bought it from said he recently put a holly carb on it and a new distributor cap. When I phoned him to ask if he knew what it might be after I got it home, he said he may have accidentally put the distributor wires back on wrong. Don't know if this could cause the issue or not, or maybe something else? Don't know much about engines, I know the real basic general of how it works, and I helped a guy rebuild one once but he knew what he was doing, so basically just asking this in general and expecting kinda a general answer don't have to be too specific, probably going to take it to someone tomorrow and just don't want any major surprises to my wallet haha. Any ideas or maybe a few possible ideas? Thanks for your time, much appreciated.