Psychopete

Hello. I am pretty new to GM products. I bought an '85 Grand Prix w/ a 262 V8 that fried and replaced it with a freshly rebuilt 327 that I had purchased from a friend. I have reason to believe that the valve train is not right, as it only had about 7 miles on it when I dropped it in. I highly doubt they were adjusted properly to begin with, I know the guy who built the engine. I am going to take the valve covers off this weekend and take a peek to see if any are too loose. Is there any tricks or could someone point me in the right direction as to adjusting roller rockers? This is my first set, and I don't want to break any of the rollers off or adjust the valve train incorrectly.

What I am experiencing is a rattling sound under load. I can't find the source, it won't do this in park. I've checked everything, it's not getting any worse, and am about to wits end trying to find the source of the rattling noise. I wonder what the possibility of this being a transmission problem? It's a TH350, I put a new torque converter, fluid and filter in durning the swap. It starts kind of faint, as you accelerate harder, the noise gets louder. Also, I notice it does it worse when the engine is warm.

Any thoughts as to the best way of trapping where the noise could be coming from? Also, due to the odd design of the heads, there's an exhaust leak on the drivers side of the engine. Perhaps I'll try and correct that this weekend, any tricks as to getting around this design so that the exhaust won't leak (headman headers - what a PITA to change plugs! )? The passenger side seems to have sealed okay, perhaps the drivers side is warped...

Here's a pic of my engine when I finally got it in the car:


Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Pete