On going issues with an old Ford 390fe?

[mad_mav70]

Here's what's going on. The truck sat up for several months during which time water got in the fuel. When I finally got around to draining the tank and got it started the truck just wouldn't idle and would miss/backfire going down the road (every once and a while it would act like it was running right). I replaced the carburetor with a new one, it had no effect. The truck ran the same. I replaced the spark plugs, the truck always ran rich and the plugs should have been black but they were tan. I replaced the cap and rotor (Ford duraspark ignition) with no change. I checked the vacuum, it was a little low (15inch)but the truck has a little bit of a cam. I checked the compression and the cyls were within 10 psi of each other. When I do get it to idle (the idle screw on the carb is almost all way in, (it should sound like a plane ready for take off) the motor runs around 800 rpm roughly. Every few seconds it hits like I've patted the throttle. I pulled plug wires and it seemed that every other cylinder had no effect on idle quality though they are getting fire. After checking all this could my troubles be in the brain box or distributor? It's strange.