Terrible news when I pulled valve cover

[arkracing]

I cant remember if this is a problem on BBC or just on the SBC's - but some of the intake bolt holes in the head go right into the lifter valley and some of them are extrememly close to the push rods. If you use a Bolt that is even 1/4" longer than the one that is supposed to be in there you might bend the push rod just putting the intake on. (especially if you adjusted the rockers without the intake on the motor)

ask me how i know (it only happened once and that was enough)

if a valve is hitting a piston it will tick all of the time most likely. I would suspect that you are ok in that department since you are running a resonable cam lift. and since it hasn't been revved over 2500RPM since you put it together I would doubt you floated a lifter and caused the piston to hit the valve - that would require alot more RPM's in most cases.

get a set of good aftermarkt pushrods Comp or Crane or whatever put them in re-adjust and see what happens.