Come on guys, put on your thinking caps here!!!!
If you suspect that the noise is coming from the pulleys, you can easily determine if it is or is not, by simply removing the drive belt and having an assistant start the engine and run it for a few seconds, just long enough to listen to see if the noise has gone away or not. If it has gone away, the problem is pulley or accessory related, if not then it is indeed inside the engine.
On these engines there are no lifters per se. There are fulcrum rocker arms and hydraulic slack adjusters. They are not buried under the intake manifold. The rocker arms are between the camshaft and valves and the slack adjusters are under one end of the fulcrum rocker arms.
As mentioned by a previous poster, you can get noises as you describe from an exhaust manifold leak, or a loose spark plug.
Good luck.