Loud valvetrain on cold start sounds kinda like a slap then it goes away but I have alot of valvetrain noise still is it rockers or lifters and if I were to have a bad lifter how could I tell and is it possible to break a lifter at the bearing to where the needle bearings fall out and get into the oil

 

did you do a cam swap or is it a stock cam...what parts are you dealing with

 

I have a stock cam but I was wondering if lifter ended up going south or not because I broke a rocker arm a while back and found roller bearings in my oil got them out and changed the rocker arm then about a week later I found a lone rollerbearing in my oil but it might be from the broken rocker arm a while back but this one looks a little bit smaller than a rocker arm bearing so I dunno but I figure if I broke a lifter then I would know pretty quick the car still runs the same and pulls as hard

 

sounds like piston slap. if you had valvetrain issues, i'd think you'd experience driveabilty issues--missing and surging.

just throwing this out there. i'm by no means a motor expert