My KA did the same thing, I removed my upper timing chain guide (turns out it had actually broken) and ran my car (hard) for another year or so with no ill affect before I did my SR swap. Not saying this will be the case for you just sharing my experience as far as that is concerned; though in retrospect if my chain was smacking that upper guide that bad, it might have been time to change my lower guides, chain, and cetera, and cetera.
Not a sermon, just a thought...
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