New Brakes, and a little engine noise

[Sicarii]

Last night I put some new brake pads on the front of my 89 gs500e,they are the sintered ones from autozone.  They seem to be working fine, but I was wondering how much drag is normal on the rotor when the brake lever is not being pulled.  In the manual it said to spin the front wheel to realign the pistons.  I did this, but the wheel doesn't just spin for a long time like a top, it moves freely but there is enough drag from the brakes to make it stop soon after you spin it.  You can also hear the pads against the rotors, kind of a swishy noise.  The old brake pads made pretty much the same noise, so I am wondering if this is normal, or whether I have a problem.  The bike drives fine, and you don't notice it when you're moving, its just that if you go real slow you can hear the pads against the rotor.

Okay, question 2.  This one is harder to explain, but I am hearing some sort of noise near the front of the engine, and I am wondering what it could be.  It sounds kind of rattly, but it isn't the chain because I can hear it even when the bike is not moving.  It sort of comes and goes.  I guess without hearing it, it would be hard to diagnose, but do the valves normally make some noise, and do they get worse if they are out of adjustment?  Or could it be the timing chain or something like that?  Should I be worried about it, or is it just normal engine noise? 

Thanks in advance for any info you might give, and I'm sorry if these are stupid questions, but I haven't owned a motorcycle before so I really don't know.