New 540's with 5 hours on them and one let loose yesterday. Horrible ticking noise followed by the engine stalling. Took the valve covers off and everything looked good. Did a compression test and cylinders 3 & 7 had no compression while 1 & 5 had a 140psi. Anyone have any guesses to what it might be. This sucks

I dropped a valve seat once and it sounded like what your talking about. Brand new motor, screwed the whole thing up. Hope yours is not as bad.

Two intake lifters stuck (apparently not enough clearance). Bent a couple valves. It should be running by the weekend.