I'm going to have the rockers on my hotcam readjusted as I have pinging around 2k rpm under load. The car was blowing smoke so my buddy swapped seals and smoke gone, but pinging now.

 

Zero lash + 3/4-turn has always worked for me with stock lifters. But, I don't see this curing the pinging problem. Either you're still burning a small amount of oil, or you've carboned-up the combustion chamber.

Now, we'll wait for this to be moved to LT1 Tech

 

Is it pinging(detonation) or mis-firing? If you don't have enough timing at tip-in, it can mis-fire.

How do your plugs look?

 

This belongs on "LT1 Tech".... moving it there

 

It does not matter what kind of hydraulic cam it is, the valve setting procedure does not change.

 

I'm stumped then.
The car didn't ping when she was 1st put back together and the intake was cleaned along with everything else. The only problem when putting it back together where missing seals in the Hotcam kit so the exhaust seals that we used where of different type then the intake seals. She blew a lot of smoke for a coupld of days then pulled the covers off and rockers and replaced the seals, voila no more smoke. Is it possible the intake chamber is dirty from the smoking problem?