What's wrong with my motor?
Going to revive this thread, but only because I never updated it after I found the issue.
No replies necessary, we can let it die for good now.
First thing I should have asked was "what did I change?". The answer - the timing chain. When I put the motor back together and dropped it in, I put a new timing chain on it since the old one seemed pretty loose. Any guesses as to what the noise was? That's right, because I mistimed the cam, all the intake valves were hitting the pistons. There was another thread where I fessed up to my mistake, if someone is curious they can go look for it.
Was looking for some of my old posts related to freeflows on Magnum heads and found this thread. Thought I should at least close it out with an update on what the problem was.