That’s a hard road to walk down. Obviously it would be better to not have to pull the motor. I think the big game your going to have to play right now is working to get to the bottom of what is actually making the noise.
If you can drive the car and its not missfireing then I would really strongly lean against it being a lifter as if the lifter isn’t staying pumped up your going to tend to see misfires.
So questions like do you hear the nosie at idle… will it get worse if you rev the motor or hold rpm.
Cam phase adjustments are hard to call it could be the variance in the chain or just an over active unit from oil differences.