Sorry Another Cam Swap Question/Problem

First off I want to thank you all for the help, I have been working on this project for too long as I keep running into issues... been a bit aggravating and tiring.

So I know it's not an LX but my buddy said you all are great with help so I hope it's okay. But I have 2006 Dodge Ram 1500 with a 5.7L MDS and I did a cam swap. Let me start with a little info and why and what.

I had a lifter go bad and was getting tired of the noise and did not want it to leave me or my family on the side of the road. Figured it is was going to replace the lifters I might as well do a cam and timing chain.


I put in a Comp Cam 112-500-11 (260H-13), Comp Valve Springs 26918's, and a Comp Push Rods 7914's. I purchased the MDS lifters from a SBI who told me that they are reboxed Mopar/Dodge lifters and since I have 190,000 miles figured it would be a good time the do the time chain. During the disassembly I missed a push rod and when. Pulled the head it caught and hit the dowel pin creating a nick. Since I was already having the head worked on we did a surface as well of .004" to clean it up.

After reassembly I had on hell of a racket , it sounded like a badass sewing machine. So I was pretty aggravated by now and getting discouraged after all the time and money. But it ran great! Fired right up, no CEL's, no leaks, nothing just a tinking sound from both valve covers. So the next day I started making calls to a bunch of people and found out I was using the stock 5.7L pushrods on a cam based off a 6.1L (the base circles were different). I also was told that since my machine shop did not use locators on the 918 springs I'm going to have huge issues down the road.

I was instructed to get stock 6.1L pushrods and 16 stock 6.1L exhaust valve Springs. I did and got the 918's off and the new 6.1 springs on. So it's all back together and where most of the tick is gone there is still a tick and it seems to get a but worse after warming up. I thought maybe the oil I was using was to thin with the higher lift cam so I but in 5w30 EP Mobil 1, one Lucas Oil Stabilizer, and a K&N oil filter.

I have put maybe 50 miles on it since the last oil change. The tick is audible from the outside and more so from the wheel well's (the exhaust manifolds are right there as well the thend bottom of cover), or when driving by a wall. The tick is not audible inside and seems to go away or can't hear it once above 2k rpm.

Any ideas? I'm thinking maybe the exhaust pushrods are still too short, but I have been reading that sometimes a noisy valvetrain with a cam swap is just the nature of the beast and I should not be worried about it.

FYI, it runs even better now then the first time

I don't know if this will help but I'm in a similar situation as you, rebuilt my 5.7 using 6.1L pushrods and valve springs and had a tick. Drove it like that for 30,000 miles and am now on my second bad lifter. Thinking I should have went with custom length pushrods.