SOLVED: HORRIBLE annoying engine tick after heads and cam. Need help!!

Thank you sledger46, you save the day. This problem is SOLVED!

I really REALLY appreciate all of the help and ideas to check. And the quickness of your replies. Thank you!

Really the only thing I can blame is myself. I assumed (and you know what assuming does!!!) that the heads were bolt on and the only changes I would need were lifters pushrods and the proper intake/gaskets. I made sure the valve to piston was good and I sized the cam for the retainer clearance. The issue was my negligence in checking the pushrod to head clearance. The problem area is on the intake face side of the pushrod hole area. If you have done magnum head swap, I am sure you are aware of this problem. If you are planning this swap and are gathering information, here is the deal:

The geometry of the LA's short lifter vs Magnum tall roller lifter valvetrain.

First off, the pushrods do not sit plumb out of the lifters and the pushrods do not come into the rockers plumb.

Alot, but not all of this is due to on the magnum engine, the tall roller lifters put the pushrods further away from the head. On the LA engine, the head has more proper clearance in the pushrod area for the longer pushrods/shorter lifters and the geometry imposed on all of these parts.

What you have is the lifters sitting in the block at an angle from vertical greater than the pushrods. So when the lifter and pushrod is on the base circle of the cam, the pushrods are directly contacting the heads. Then, when the lifter starts running up the ramp of the cam, the pushrod is moved further away from the head. This geometry issue is also why it is known that a cam with .3125 lobe lift will not produce a true .500 valve lift (with a true 1.6 rocker). When the lifter starts running down the back side of the cam lobe, the pushrod comes back into contact with the head and consequently pulls the pushrod off of the cup in the lifter. As the cam rotated, the pushrod would slam back in to the cup and thats where I was finding my ticking.

I must have missed all of the signs. This is what I found upon a closer inspection:

The comp hardened pushrods showed a slight wear ring midway up the length. I thought it was the head gasket or something else. I would have thought that metal to metal contact would have shown more wear on the pushrods than that. Hardened pushrods.....

The tip of the pushrod that was in the lifter had a very bad place of wear about 3/16 of an inch above the very tip. This corresponded with the wear I found on the lifter that I took out and replaced (when I thought the noise was a bad lifter). The lifter had wear on the inner diameter of the outside lifter body, clearly where the pushrod had been sitting on the outside of the plunger, up against the inner wall of the lifter body.

Also, I noticed when the valve covers were off, I would see intermittent rocker oiling when I could hear the ticking.

So when I started this adventure last night to solve my tick, I started by pulling off the noisy pushrod and rocker. Thought about what damaging effects this could have on head gaskets or whatever else and decided to do it anyway. Started the engine and the ticking COMPLETELY went away. So that eliminated the idea i had that a foreign object may have got on top of the piston. It still did not eliminate the bent/sticky valve or seat problem. So I looked down the pushrod hole and saw a shiny spot on the intake flange side that corresponded with the wear on the pushrod. Great. I drained the coolant and pulled the intake for the 4th time. I loaded the entire valley with dry towels. Then I piled a handful of clean oiled up rags under the hole I would be grinding in. Did the same thing to the top of the head. I was refusing to pull the head to do this. Although head and exhaust gaskets are cheap and the coolant was already drained, I wanted this thing to run tonight. It was a bad decision to grind on an installed head but I will live with any problems. Please, grind your heads while they are on the bench. I did not want to use the die grinder because it turns so fast and shoots metal shavings in a 3 mile radius. My choice was a cordless drill and a 1/2" double cut cylindrical burr. I could vary the speed and had good control with this set up. There is a very large amount of casting flash half way down this hole. Not only that, but the wall there also starts to bulge. Take this entire area down flat. It wont be more than 5 minutes of grinding to take enough material off. It doesn't have to be pretty. One it is clearanced enough CAREFULLY remove all of your rags/towels. Soak a few paper towels in oil and wipe the area down to pick up any remaining shavings. Then stuff towels in the valley under the head and spray brake clean in to make sure all metal shavings are removed. Wipe down with brake clean soaked towels until no shavings comeback. Reassemble.

This procedure cured my loud ticking on the drivers bank of the engine. However, now that I don't have that noise, I can hear slight ticking on the passenger bank of the engine. Bummer.

Again, Thanks for all the help and ideas you guys gave me.