95 F150 302, 5.0 Distributor Install Frustration

[blueridge1137]

My F150 recently died while driving and wouldn't restart. Upon towing it home, it restarted fine, so it was having an intermittent electrical problem. It displayed a CEL code of 211, which is a PIP circuit fault. Upon researching I found that it was likely either something in the distributor was bad or that a wire near the PIP was grounding.

I purchased a re-manufactured distributor and installed along with new plugs and wires (the firing order is 1-8-4-5-6-2-7-3). I made one mistake during the installation and fired the engine with #5 spark plug removed...likely pulled air into the open cylinder. Now the engine will fire, however it is a very rough idle and will cut off after around a minute. Also, I noticed oil blowing/dripping from the rear exhaust. It no longer displays a CEL code, and I re-installed the old distributor to confirm the re-manufactured distributor was ok. It reacted the same way, so I've since reinstalled the new distributor.

So, would firing the engine missing a spark plug throw off timing? I'm about to clean the O2 sensor since it likely is coated with gasoline/oil in my exhaust system. I haven't done the process where I find TDC and check timing...was hoping to get some insight before I potentially made things up worse.

Thanks!

[blueridge1137]

To clarify 1-8-4-5-6-2-7-3 is not the firing order...that's the order on the distributor cap beginning with 1 and firing clockwise. The actual firing order is 1-3-7-2-6-5-4-8. Firing diagram attached.