I've never used a break in additive. Any chance it has colored your oil? Rotella alone should be OK.

Could be condensation depending on how many times your shop went from freezing to toasty warm if in fact your shop doesn't have full time heat. If you have anti freeze in the engine the easy test is just get a touch of oil on your finger and taste it.

You said some of the rockers were tight for side clearance. Not sure about SB rockers but BB has different offset for intake and exhaust.

Check all your pushrods for interference with the heads. If they are hitting they will be shiny where they hit.

Kevin

The intake and exhaust rockers are different. if you didn't know they were different and had them off the back bone , you could have easily installed them incorrectly, but that would still not give you oil starve.

The shafts and rockers are installed correctly. I have triple checked at this point. Oil pressure is good and flows to all the rockers. I think the milky color to the oil is condensation. We've had an abnormally cold winter. My garage is unheated until I go in to work in it. Then I crank up two torpedo heaters.

Here's what I did last night:

1. Checked preload. I checked two pushrods with the rocker all the way down then took the rockers off and measured the distance the rod came up. It's difficult to scribe 100% accurately. One was .07 and the other .062. The variance could be human error. I will try it again tonigh to make sure. I really don't think I was on the money with the measurements. One thing I did notice. When I took the rockers off not all the pushrods were sitting at the same height. 2 were a little lower. They weren't bent and all are same length. I figure that's because of the cam love they are sitting on. Correct?

2. I put some 10w-30 in to see if it would make a difference. It might have helped a very small amount but I still have valve train noise. I shut it down after 3 or 4 minutes. If my numbers are right it looks like I need shorter pushrods. Unless I'm missing something.

Thanks for all the advice. Keep it coming if I'm headed the wrong direction.

did you check to see if the rockers are hitting the valve cover? it was mentioned earlier..
you said you think you need shorter pushrods,how did you come to that conclusion?

Nothing is hitting the valve covers... The preload should be between 20 and 40 from what I have read. Mine is 70 but I need to check more thoroughly to confirm. I know it's not oil viscosity, it's not rocker orientation or shaft orientation, it's not a lubrication to the rockers issue and it isn't anything hitting the valve covers. There's no metal in the oil.

Noise indicates too short of push rod to me, since you haven't wiped the cam yet.

Unless you measure each push rod for each valve and order according, I think adjustable rockers would be better to spend money on than new push rods. Plus stock rockers are prone to failure after 45 years.

I spoke with lunati tech support. He said .025 shorter pushrods but said mine were close and may not be an issue. He said the voodoo cams sometimes cause a bit of valve train noise and suggested I do a full breakin and run it to give everything time to get settled. What do you guys think? Does this sound right? Plus, If I need to go .025 shorter any idea where I get them? Part numbers would be greatly appreciated....

Typical tech support. He has no idea what your deck height is or what cylinder head you have or if it has been milled but he knows your push rod length is OK...

Kevin

i would try shaft shims before new push rods.. IMO too long will not cause noise...

As stated above if you used push rods from the 273 they will bottom out the plunger in the lifter. They are way too long to be used with hydraulic lifters. Are you making sure to set the preload when the lifter is on the base circle of the cam. Ant at the point just where all free travel between the rocker, valve tip, push rod and cam are taken up. base circle

First find the exact preload. With any particular cyls' lobes on base circle lay one of those 6" thin steel metal rulers, the ones with the clip to go in your shirt pocket across the valve cover rails & wipe the edge of it with a magic marker then before it dries quickly slide it over till it touches a pushrod & makes a thin magic marker ink mark on it. Then loosen the shaft holddown bolts till the pushrod is up all the way but not loose enough to where it is falling sideways (in the same plane in other words) & make another new mark then take the shaft/holddowns/pushrod all the way out & with that steel scale measure the distance between the two marks for your preload. Those shims will change the wipe pattern in addition to the pushrod length needed. You need .020" - .030" preload and an acceptable wipe pattern (as close to the center as possible/not going off the edge). mancini & others have those metal shims, just me I think they're hokey & I prefer soft copper or alum washers. For the cause of the noise you might have inadequate preload or one or more of the lifters might be defective

I followed the advice of the Lunati rep...reluctantly...Changed the oil again, put in more break in lube and went through the whole 30 minute break in. No issues, no temperature problems, oil pressure good. It lost a bunch of the valve noise but it still has some. Probably 30% of where it was originally. No metal in the oil either...

I have been reading everything I can on the 340 valve train and just read that the 340 rockers were different than the 318 rockers. Apparently they have a relief area for bigger valve springs. I didn't realize they were different. I used a set of 318 rockers! Haven't been able to go out and confirm this is my problem but can anyone confirm if this is truly the case? Were the rockers different? Could this be the cause of my noise?

the oil holes on the rocker shafts or offset from the bolt holes, oil holes down and to the outside.

I don't remember any 340-specific stamped steel rockers, sounds like bunk to me.

Anyway, PLENTY of Mopar 318s have been built with camshafts similar to yours in terms of lift, using stock 318 rocker arms. Look at the bottom of your rockers to see if they are conttacting the spring or retainer. I bet they aren't. If no contact, rockers are not the problem.

You did say something that could have a bearing on the situation: Voodoo camshaft.

Comp Cams' HE line and Lunati's Voodoo cams have very aggressive ramps on the lobes. This puts higher stress on the valvetrain, which could cause more noise than a stock-type cam. The CompXE line is especially known for this, but the Voodoo is similar in design and that COULD be the increase in noise that you're getting.

I think you're worrying about nothing. If the lifter has 0.150 travel and you're using about half as preload, I don't see that reducing the preload would lessen noise appreciably. It may put the rocker in a wrong place on the valve tip, you can check for that.

If you want to buy shorter pushrods, first you find out how long yours are and then search out a shelf stock pushrod the right length, or have Smith Brothers or Manton custom build you some. Not impossibly expensive. Or send them a pushrod and say build one 0.025" shorter. But I think the lifters are more forgiving than that.

Have you checked the pushrod sides for contact marks with the intake ports?

R.