power valve makes my 440 ping??

I have a lot of respect for Guitar Jones and his knowledge and experience. I have to agree with moper though about the power valve. There is no good reason in my years of experience to remove a power valve from the primary side of a Holley. It is the most efficient way to enrichen the fuel mixture under load. An 82 jet should be efficient for your application and a power valve in the range of 5.5 to 6.5 is also in the ball park. Pinging usually occurs for the following reasons:
1. improper timing and/or advance curve
2. detonation caused by "hot spots" from carbon or oil entering the mixture
3. lean fuel/air mixture or insufficient octane of fuel
You need to chase down these variables. Removing the power valve results in a lean situation when it needs it the most. You say pinging is lessened when you remove it and I have no reason to doubt your judgement. It is really making me think you have two problems all at once. The first is a messed up distributor that is reaching full advance quickly with TOO MUCH advance (eliminate the vacuum) and second, you may have a problem with the carb as Guitar Jones pointed out. Pinging simply does not occur in an engine with a 12-to-1 fuel mixture, all things else equal. I have to assume that you are using a quality fuel up to the task but by all means put some octane booster in it. Be sure fuel pressure is around 6 psi at idle. Use a vacuum gage on a full vacuum port on the carb and get an idle reading because that will tell you what power valve you need. Rap the throttle and watch what it drops to. The power valve has to be in play before that bottom occurs. If your vacuum at idle is 10 hg then a power valve of 6.5 hg would be good. A 5.5 would delay the enrichment slightly. The number on the power valve is the hg (inches of water) that the critter opens at and adds more fuel into the main wells beyond what the main jets can provide. So then, an 8.5 valve would enrichen earlier than a 6.5. Removing the power valve requires that you increase the size of the main jets a whole bunch and that is just not good for overall driveability and economy. I'm not trusting your distributor! Can you switch to another one that is proven to be good? Do you know anyone with a trick timing light that reads the advance from initial through total. Get that done. Another thing I have seen is that people change primary metering blocks sometimes for whatever reason. One of the big differences in the metering blocks are the sizes of the PVCRs (power valve channel restrictions) which regulate how much extra fuel the power valve can supply to the main wells and out to the boosters. You can see these holes in there when you take the power valve out. If you have a block from a list 1850 600 cfm carb for example, the PVCRs would be too small to enrichen the mixture as is needed. What is your water temperature? If it is around 200, the fuel air mixture is also heated which can cause it to ignite more quickly at a given reference of timing. There is a difference of 8% from an engine running 160 against 200. Hope this helps.
Pat