First question:
I recently put a new 383 in my 1969 and it's had a ticking sound ever since. Thought it was an exhaust leak but I just got all new exhaust on it and it's still there. It sounds as though it is coming from the rear of the engine. I removed the valve cover and noticed that the #7 rockers look like they are wearing funny. The seem to be crooked...not centered over the valve stem and you can see the wear on the side of the roller tips (the are Comp Cam roller rockers..BTW.) Could this be the culprit? Any advice?

Second question:
My autometer tach seems to fluctuate. For instance, it will be idling at 900 then the tach will jump to 1100 or 1200. Any ideas? Plug wire issue? The are relatively new...put them on when I dropped the engine in....less than 1,000 miles.

Thanks in advance!!
David

I used to have a small block Ford that did the exact same thing , it would eat the tip of the exhaust valve. The rocker would be off center and eat away at the valve tip till it was rounded off and ticking like a bad lifter the noise drove me nuts tick, tick, tick...tick...tick. I pulled the head and had a new valve installed and put it back together and after awhile same thing happened all over again so I pulled the motor and got another motor problem solved. Years down the road I found out that Ford had 2 types of lifters for smallblock and on my 260 the rebuild shop gave me lifters for a 302 and that was the route of my whole problem , the 302's are taller lifters which caused it to ride on the outside of the valve tip and chew it away. Now if you read the side of a Comp Cam lifter box it says that Chevy lifters will not work in BPO (Buick Pontiac Oldsmobile) maybe you have a bad lifter (bent pushrod ?) or one odd one got mixed in with the rest of your lifters. On your Tach check your connections and ground. Thanks Rich T.

....and one more thing to check did you install a high lift cam ? if you did check it for coil bind . Thanks Rich T.