If you look at the diagram you can see that the driver's side lifters get the last little bit of the oil pressure. And, what you are seeing on the gauge is after the passenger's side and before the driver's side. So, #5 gets the dregs and would be where I would expect the noise to come from if lack of oiling is the issue.

Both sides have about the same amount of noise, seems to me drivers side is slightly louder, but that might just be in my mind. I spoke with Tim and he didn't seem to think it was an oiling issue. After talking back and forth we seem to believe that there is not enough lifter pre-load. When tightening down the rockers on the pedestal, only about the last half turn feels like I'm applying any sort of pre-load. Tim says that it should be a little more than that. He recommends that I try .060 longer pushrods. pushrods are cheap, so I think it will be a good place to start. I'm going to try the "paper clip" trick to ensure that the rockers are not binding (which I don't think they are) and if that checks out I'll be ordering some .060 longer pushrods from Tim.

I agree - yours doesn't sound like an oiling prom since you have 40 psi at idle. But I suspect mine is due to the low pressure I have.

Anyway, pushrods are a good place to start. Let us know.

.
. I would have had a hard time putting it back on the trailer once the exhaust system was done...! ... LOL!

. My 351W had a lifter tapping a little at startup after I built it, but it went away after it got an hour or so of running on it and never came back...
.

Got a lot done on the truck this past weekend. I adjusted the timing (no more detonation), fixed the rear light issue (I now have all my driving and brake lights), lightened the choke on the carb (still needs to be lighter), and I switched out my pushrods to the .060 over rods that I got from Tim. I was very pleased to find that the slightly longer pushrods cured my valve train ticking. While I was into the valvetrain, I double checked for rocker binding. They weren't even close, so If anyone wants to run a Comp Cams XE256 cam with stock rockers, it can be done. It does seem like you will need to run slightly longer pushrods because apparently I did not have adequate lifter pre-load with entirely stock valvetrain geometry.

Sounds like things are working, or are worked, out. Good job!

. But... did you use the same thickness of head gasket?

I used whatever Tim sent in the rebuild kit.

. May have been why the pushrods too short...

It's very possible.

On a side note: I finally figured out why I was having occasional ignition issues. Turns out that my fairly new ICM went bad. I ruled that out when I was trying to track down the problem because it only have a few hundred miles on it. I swapped it out with one that we had on our F-250 CS with a 460 and my truck ran better then ever. I'm really glad to have the problem figured out, but I'm not happy how soon that ICM failed. At least my new one has a lifetime warranty. So I can give the 460 it's ICM back. :D

Glad you got that sorted. Partially failing is a pain to diagnose.

Technically, our gaskets sets come with a performance head gasket. It is about .010" thicker than the OE gasket. .010" will not make a difference, if it does, there are other problems. By time a head gets resurfaced and if the block is resurfaced, that .010" thicker gasket is no longer a concern.

Good to know, thanks. I'm guessing slightly different tolerances on the cam may be the reason for not enough pre-load. Regardless, it's running great now and that's all that matters!

Great build and write up. Im glad to see im not the only one balancing school, work, and a resto project. Its hard to find a good write up on 400 builds, but yours is spot on with what I plan on doing.

Thanks, I appreciate it! When I was doing my research on my 400 build, information was very limited. Gary, Buzz, and Tim were all huge assets. I wouldn't be where I am now without them. I tried to make my thread as in-depth as possible for anyone who wanted to try and do a build similar to mine. I'm am extremely pleased with my engine so far. Tim really put together a great "kit" for me. My engine is getting more and more powerful all the time as the rings seat. :-jammin