Alway, always, always check everything. Then check it again. You didn't check the cam phasing with a degree wheel right? You didn't verify lifter preload right? Did you look through each PR oil channel and spray them out with brake cleaner or something?? I know it's a pain but you have to check this stuff. You'll learn very expensive lessons if you don't. Trust me..I know. I've seen PR oil channels blocked with gunk from the factory. Probably like has been said you just had a lifter crapp out on you. Pull off the suspect rocker and push on the lifter with the PR. Does it feel spongy and easy to push?
May as well go ahead and get some good heads now and better lifters too...

 

I cleaned all the oil passages in the pushrods before installing them. I pulled the rockers off last night and pushed on the push rods, all of them were solid.

 

Do a leakdown cyl test. You may have bent a valve. Possibly due to cam being installed in a few degrees off. Or as was said before you may have just lost a lifter due to no fault of your own. But you really need to check all these things to be sure.

 

If smoke is pouring out from a valve then it isn't sealing properly. Being that the cam was just installed and you said there was lack of performance from the beginning I would lean toward the fact that the cam was installed a few degrees off. This in turn could have caused a bent pushrod or a valve to come in contact with a piston, causing it to bend and not seal properly. If there is a constant ticking it could be piston to valve contact. Your best bet is to just pull the heads and look. That's the easiest way to find out what is going on.

 

Well, I found an exhaust leak on the drivers side at the header gasket. I am going to fix this as soon as I can get new exhaust manifold gaskets and see what's going on then. All of the rockers are moving just fine with no jerks or jolts so that leads me to believe my lifters are fine. The car didn't feel down on power at first until I pulled the valve cover to recheck the torque after the first 2 heat cycles and forgot to plug the drivers side coilpacks back in, oops. The ticking started right after that along with the wandering idle. If I fix this, and it still isn't quite right, I'll pull the heads.

 

cool....let's hope it's something simple. Keep us posted.