0949er

well have you located the source at least? do you know if its coming from under the hood or under the car?

Sxynerd

My header was vibrating on my starter. I had to loosen up my H pipe and "wiggle" my exhaust around then re tighten and it went away. (Worse case scenario, you dimple the contact tube.)

PaintballFreak

When you say "wiggle", how much movement can you actually get from the header while it's bolted to the head?

If it is rubbing against something that would fit the rattle description - but what it's rubbing, I don't know. I hope it's something easy like the cross-brace on the K-member and not the K-member itself or the starter. It feels like it's on the drivers side but I could be wrong. I'll try to get under there and have a look around this evening. Thanks for the idea.

Tim99GT

So what i gather is that it even rattles when in idle? Have you put the car on jack stands, started it, and crawled under to see if you can better locate where it is comming from?
My guess is going to be the headers touching the steering shaft.
The tick is a exhaust leak...
What did your motor mounts look like when you did the header install? Might be a bit worn? causing the motor to move just a hair more than it normally does causeing the headers to rattle into something?

PaintballFreak

It's not the steering shaft, because I can feel it better through the floor/pedals than the steering wheel. It does it both during idle and when driving but it doesn't do it constantly. It comes and goes which is weird.

The mounts looked fine but I'm sure taking them on and off they are not in the exact position they were before. Like I said, they are on correctly and lined up with the K-member holes. So if it IS off, it is only by millimeters.

I have not put the car up on stands yet because it didn't really start rattling until an hour into my drive back to Austin. I don't have a good place to jack it up until maybe the weekend. Until then, unless I can poke my head under and feel it, I'm just going to make a list of things to look at.

PaintballFreak

FIXED!

Thank God it WAS the cross-brace that was causing the problem. Damn driver's side was resting right on the ****er. Sorry for wasting everyone's time - I could see it laying down beside my car. I crawled under to make sure there weren't any other issues, snapped some pics, and removed the brace.

Obviously the brace is important or it wouldn't be on the car. So should I get some washers to stick between it and the K-member to lower it a half inch or so? If not what's a good way to make sure it clears? It seems like it might be hard to dent and I'd rather not start swinging at the headers while they are on the car.

I was too busy smiling and pissing off all the students walking around me to think to put my window up and see if it was still making the tick-tick-tick which I thought was the midpipe. I'll check that later. I'll try to get up a sound clip some time. I only have a regular camera and the sound quality for the video sucks.

For now, more PICS:

Sxynerd

The brace isn't that important, lol. Nothing some subframe connectors can't fix anyway. I you really want it there, you can use some big washers and a pipe (Cut the pipe to length) to lower down the brace a little. Or just use washers. I did that with my 03's GMS K member & brace..