I had a ticking noise coming from my engine and thought it was the water pump whining and going bad. I replaced the water pump but the noise hasnt gone away. My oil pressure seems to be changing. It drops to 20-30 at idle and goes back up to 60 under load. The noise also goes away under load. Did I lose a ring? I'm going to try and get one more poker run out of her. Is ther any chance this could be valve adjustment issues? Any steps for process of elimination would be nice. I bag also heard that its cheaper to just replace these blocks for a $3000 long block than rebuild the 454's. Any truth there?

Mechanic said they didnt notice anything a few weeks ago when they had it. He thinks it could be the exhaust flappers inside the y pipe rattling. On the oil pressure; thinks the guage could be going bad possibly because they saw no issues with oil pressure

Not sure what pipes you have, but I had an issue with flappers banging in the past. What I did to prove it to myself was jam a wooden broom handle up each pipe to hold the flappers open, started the engine, and the noise was gone, proof to me that the flappers were bad.

Not sure what your oil pressure issues could be, the pressures look just fine to me.

20-30 hot at idle and 60+ under load are about what you want.