I haven’t posted here before but this is an issue I can’t find anywhere, for some background I bought this car for $500, I painted it myself, replace the distributor cap and icm, spark plugs, driver side exhaust manifold, egr valve, some other simple stuff, and they all fixed different issues and the car does start and drive. The car sounds pretty good when idling but does die down at start if you don’t apply a little throttle. When you do rev the car the engine starts to die off a little then kicks in, 1st gear is also out so don’t mind how long it takes to get the car going in the video but you should be able to hear distinct banging or popping coming from the passenger side of the engine bay. The sound isn’t coming from the engine itself but seems to be from the radiator or somewhere on the front of the engine. If anyone could help me with these issues it would be much appreciated. Lmk if you’d like anymore details, picture, or videos as I couldn’t add much from the 20mb limit.

Can't open the video since I'm at work, but from the description, sounds like you're hearing backfiring through the intake. The sound will travel through your intake piping and resonate through the air filter, kinda makes it sound like it's coming from the front of the bay. If you have access to a timing light, I would check and see where your initial timing is at the moment (let it get up to temp, then disconnect the EST wire... it'll be the single tan wire with a black connector over near the pass side strut tower). The factory service manual says initial timing should be 10deg BTDC, but I, along with many other V6 folks I've talked to, have found that the motor runs better closer to 20deg BTDC. I went through quite the battle setting my timing recently, turned out I'd just had my plug wires crossed up though I'd had the backfiring issue before I messed with my timing though, and that ended up being a snapped rocker stud on the Cyl 2 exhaust valve.... probably not your issue, but there could be a few different causes. I would start with double (and triple) checking your plug wires (1-2-3-4-5-6), then see where the base timing (EST disconnected) is set. It would also probably be worth checking your spark plugs to see if any of them are especially fouled... my cyl 2 plug looked like charcoal with that busted exhaust rocker stud.

If your plugs and wiring look good, it might be worth trying to st timing. While you have the Cyl 1 plug out, I'd check to make sure that the timing mark on your damper still lines up with TDC on cyl 1. As for timing itself... If it's sitting at 10BTDC, try advancing it a few more degrees and see if it helps (you'll need to do this with the engine running and EST wire unplugged... you'll need to turn the dizzy counterclockwise to advance it. Once you have the timing where you want it, tighten the dizzy clamp and make sure it didn't move. Turn the car off, plug the EST wire back in, and disconnect the battery if you want to clear the code immediately; it should go away on it's own within a minute or two).