It's a different valve cover, no point in keeping the old one since it was already off, we put the nicer one on that we had. I'd go see a doctor regarding your hearing though, the knock was clearly audible from the first time we started the motor. But I'm sure the motor did run great, cause it did so the whole weekend we raced it.
Long story short, we left it in the car and picked up a replacement motor at a junkyard 15 minutes away from the track to swap it in once this one went. We filled it with 3 quarts of dyno 20w-50 and added a quart of Lucas heavy oil engine stabilizer, that stuff is as thick as tree sap. We then proceeded to bet on how long the motor would last, the average consensus was between 40 to 50 laps. Yet somehow by end of day one we had racked up close to 200 laps. That's 460 miles running it between 4k-6.5k RPM for 9.5 hours straight. It burned through a lot of oil, was easily 1.5 quarts short, but it ran, and it ran strong! This is why I like the SR20 power plant, even with issues and 255K miles on the clock the sucker couldn't be killed.
So in the end it all worked out. This $75 motor did it's duty and lasted us the weekend. It's lived it's life and will now be pulled and junked. We have an '01 G20 roller rocker with 98k miles and running strong (allegedly), we're going to give it a shot.