I remember when you were doing this build because I used a set of Morel 6504’s in my build the second time also. In my case they were quiet until the cheap-ass lifter trays I used struck again. The third and final time I went in with Chevrolet Performance lifters as well (and genuine GM trays), and have 30K miles on the build now with no further issues, thankfully.Yeah likely some of that too. But the noise is significantly less with the GM lifters. I have a little noise but its the normal cammed/headered LS engine noise on cold start now.
On the Roloc wheels, I bought one and tried it out on some scrap aluminum I had, and it did damage, so I went with the Permatex chemical gasket stripper. Reading your posts now I’m glad I did!