Installed bad fuel injectors, reinstalled old injectors now has ticking noise

I recently purchased “OEM Denso” refurbished fuel injectors for my gen 2 Prius. I didn’t give them much of a look down before I Installed them and got some very bad misfiring. Took them out to figure out the problem and was less than pleased to find that these “OEM Denso” injectors are not Denso unless I’m confused. Plus they are put together horribly. Some pieces are on wrong or missing entirely.

I reinstalled my old injectors and to my dismay, I now have a ticking noise from the engine. Could possibly be riser tick?? I really don’t know, that’s why I’m on here to hopefully get some ideas.

1. let’s all learn from my mistake and give things a very good look before using them. Be very careful with those eBay rebuilt injectors.

2. what should I look for as far as the ticking goes? I checked codes and at one point had a p3000 I believe? Basically random misfire. But I’m pretty sure that was from when I had the bad injectors in, so I cleared the codes and haven’t gotten it back after a 10 minute drive and some more maintenance mode idling.

I’ve checked that I am not leaking fuel from the fuel rail.

No engine lurching or anything.

I should also mention that I have had a p0420 code for a while now. I suppose it could be an exhaust leak, but it’s weird that this happened after the injector issue.

 

https://youtube.com/shorts/OeOkqaHJFrM?si=SeWC2g5TTVophKFb

engine running with tick now.

 

As far as I know they are both at 158k. Never really had any oil burning.

I had a friend come over and we manually turned the engine with the plugs out. We determined that it is a piston slap on cylinder 4. So at this point I’ve decided to just have my fiancé drive it until it dies.

as for the other thread I am 99% sure it was just the used actuator that I installed. So I’m getting a new one and will then update that thread.