I haven't dropped the pan yet, but I did take a stethoscope to the motor and the noise sounds like something hitting the valve cover above cylinder 1. My timing chain had a decent amount of slack on the side opposite of tensioner, but I don't know how much is excessive, I could get a lot of deflection out of it(did not test to see if I could pull chain above sprocket, but will later)
Oil pressure at track (from what I paid attention to) was normal, and it was the normal at idle and driving it home.
As for rod knock, isn't a test for this to pull your plugs in pairs and see if the noise changes and if it doesn't, it's not the rods?