I have 98 Dodge Ram 1500 5.2 4x4. 112,000 miles on it. It starts fine, will idle fine most of the time but will sometimes bog down to 400 rpms, and will reak of what smells like unburnt gas fumes. When driving down the road sometimes it will run perfect other times it will backfire and sputter around 40-55 mph. The backfiring will sometimes shoot what my co worker told me looks like an orange glow out your exhaust pipes. I have a hollowed out cat which I plan on replacing. I've changed plugs, coil, wires, distributor/ plus cap, throttle body sensor, I just bought a fuel pressure gauge to test the fuel rail. Any suggestions would be a great help.

 

Kinda sounds like a timing issue to me.

 

could be a bad/fouled plug not firing, and passing gas into the exhaust where it fires in in the hot pipes.
could be a leaking fuel injector, dumping gas out of time.
could be problem with timing and/or cam position sensor in the distributor.

check the plugs for one that looks fouled, maybe swap that injector with another to see if the problem moves.

maybe just blindly replace cam position sensor, but it might cost 25-50 bucks. no guarantee, just a shot in the dark.

 

don't forget the crank sensor.