so over the weekend i installed my new exhaust manifold(old one cracked built by a buddy of mine) while i had the manifold off i gave the runners a good cleaning with 30,000 miles of build up on them it was pretty bad so after i changed the oil and took it for a drive noticed that the tick from the head was gone waited a few days (witch when it does go away it will come back in a few days after i do an oil change) so after some pretty hard driving over the nice Saturday night that we had in Chicago still done hear anything. so now my question is has anyone every cleaned out the runners and there tick has gone away considering i have had my car to some of the local shop and not to name anyone they say there is nothing to do but replace them which i have done with a local engone builder that lives down the street from me but it was still there so we came to the conclusion that the head need to be rebuilt with all new stuff. so that is my question has anyone every had this experience

 

You probably never had valve lifter noise. Instead, you were hearing noise from the cracked manifold.