bad ticking

Ok so I did the cam this past weekend along with rollors and springs the sound im hearing was doing it before the swap i noticed but not as bad i had the car tuned today and the knock retard keeped going crazy around 3k rpms under a load i can rev the car without a load on it and it wont do it ive taken off the valve cover and checked everything about 10 times thinking its hitting something in there there was a little rubbing but i adjusted the rockers and grinded the cover so they wouldnt hit its on the drivers side any ideas on what it could be im hoping its not a bad lifter when i first noticed it i was thinking it was a header leak or something but im not sure now

Oh forgot to put in that it ticks at an idle to

what you're describing sounds to me like an exhaust leak. What headers do you have and do they have emissions hook ups on them? Have you narrowed it down to one side of the motor? Did you replace pushrods? If not did you at least roll the stockers on some glass to make sure none were bent? How much knock are you seeing?

Yeah i replaced the pushrods as well i bought the tsp ms3 kit came with all the parts on the tuner the knock retard was taking it down to around a 10 at 3k rpms is what the guy said im going to check the header gasket later but im not smelling anything up there its hard to really hear where its coming from the car is so loud right now but is sounds like its coming from the top of the valve cover at first i was thinking it was just the headers making noise i have bbk LTs on it and no cats its weird the sensors only pick it up under a load

You changed the rocker arms? You might not have put one of them on centered and it might be causing it.

I thought the same but I've checked all of them and there centered

Thats so weird. Maybe its because theyre aftermarket that they might be a little more noisy? If its not the valvetrain then it has to be an exhaust leak at the header.. Did you check those bolts?

There was a little bit of hitting of the rockers and valve covers but very minimal u ground down the covers where it was hitting at they were all centered tho and I'm going to check my drivers collector it has a small black Mark about the size of a dime on the bottom if it I'm thinking that could be it and all the header bolts are tight the gasket looks good

I dont think you would hear a ticking if there was a leak at the collector.. If the headers are all tight the only thing i can think of is the lifters but usually theyre good.. How many miles is on the motor?
can you post a video?

yeah i just put it all back together and its still doing it the car has 108xxx on it i checked the collector and its not leaking at least from what i can feel around it and the header is tight i dont smell anything under the hood so i dont think its a leak im thinking its a lifter

So im going to just buy lifter for it Im going to buy the lunati lifters from jegs do i need to buy anything else will the old tray work stupid question

It should but i would check it some more or get it checked out in orlando to see if anybody can come up with a solution before you go buying parts