Loud sound when accelerating?

My van was having starter issues and sat with a empty gas tank and had very little oil and no fluids for about 4 weeks. Prior to this I had a cracked terminal and was starting my van by wiggling terminal wires, then it turned out to be ignition won't turn then finally a starter issue. During the 4 weeks it sat we had a big freeze week in Seattle, very cold and very wet, oh and keep in mind roads here are the suckiest of all the mother load of potholes. After figuring out the starter issue van was running great for about a day, started up every time. I forgot to fill fluids and put oil in it, I drove it maybe 7 miles bone dry like a dumb. I was excited to get back on the road again, can you blame me! Anyway, I get on freeway and as I'm accelerating it starts to shutter a bit under my gas pedal and when I was accelerating it acted as if it wanted to bog down. Once I got up to speed it was fine only when starting to go fast it would do this. Now the next day I drove it down the street and it was louder; you could hear me coming. It was loud like a putting, popping backfiring sound but coming from in front of the engine. Or something in my engine but it didn't smoke or smell like anything was burning. After putting fluids in it and oil it has drove fine around town and hasn't made the loud kerplunk sound rolling down the street yet, but I haven't wanted to speed up just in case. Would it be a fuel filter problem, or could someone be messing with my van in ways that are easy to fix and also easy to cause problems just curious on that note but I'm told fuel filter might be clogged or I have water in my gas tank, but would that cause a loud noise like that?