Ideas on what's causing my click/tick/rattle noise?

RustyRatRod said

To me RIGHT NOW, the most important issue is the physical damage and finding out what happened there. The carbon and sooty richness is clearly an unrelated tuning issue and can be ironed out after the fact. I would try to concentrate on the physical engine failure FIRST.

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I'm not sure now to figure that out? I had good oil pressure. When tearing it down I pulled the pan and double checked the torque on the rods and mains to make sure I didn't skip any and leave them loose - they were all spot on. Sadly, I didn't think to keep the rod bearings so they are gone now. When I built the motor, I plastigaged both rods and mains, they were in spec. The rods and mains were all still standard on the journals. I can verify the original main bearings were standard, I still have the old set. I'm quite sure the rod bearings were the right size (also standard). So far I got the crank back into the block and it plastigaged correctly with new main bearings. I mocked up the pistons with the new bearings and those also plastigaged correctly. I'm waiting for a new set of rings and I will install the pistons for their next go-round.