Hydr lifters, adjustable roller rocker arms, had some noise, tried to adjust preload did i mess up?

dart_68 said
I've been following this thread, very good info...as always from y'all,. I've read that stock cams are designed so that they reduce lifter noise as much as possible. Performance cams designers couldn't care less so those cams are naturally noisier.

My question for the op - is it overall noise you're hearing or an actual lifter tick from maybe a bad lifter or out of adjusted rocker?

Well I'm not an expert on engine noises but so far all of the strange noises that I've had on this engine are:

First startup after last winter: Really excess knocking. At first it felt that every lifter was knocking, started to slow down (lifters starting to work) after running for minute or two and after ~5 minutes I only had a sound that I'd describe as "dragging" as in rolling small toy car with metal wheels on hard surface. (Sorry, not a native english speaker so finding words to describe sounds is kinda hard :)). However the car always had that sound and I'm quite sure that it was just normal mechanical noise.

~ month ago: Started to notice ticking noise on top of that "dragging" noise, eventually it started to get louder.

Couple days ago: Tried to adjust the preload/inspect the valve train: both noises got a lot louder. Now the dragging sound sounds more like grinding and the ticking turned from "sound of studded tires on concrete" into "somebody smashing something metallic with small hammer".

PRH said
One other thought.......

If the motor had been revved to the point where there was noticeable valvetrain instability, and the pushrods were dancing around a little......... I’ve seen it where the bottom of the pushrod will “step on” the plunger retaining clip and dislodge and/or deform it.
I’ve seen it happen several times with fast rate cams and lifters that are simply unable to keep up.

Looking down past the head into the valley(easier on some heads than others), careful inspection of the tops of the lifters should reveal if that situation is an issue or not.

This is something that I will do next time I get back to my garage! I'll also run the car without valve covers and try to find the source of the sound..