another rattle question

ASSISTANCE Stock Engine-Bay Components
1

My car rattles from somewhere around the cat alot when starting cold, and then it kind of goes away when the car warms up. (not completely but mostly)

The rattle is still there in the 1.5-2k rpm range when warm

The rattle has slowly grown over the last several months and now that it is snowy it has gotten much worse.
I’m going to try and climb under the car tonight to see if it is just shielding that is rattling or if it is from the actual exhaust.

I was told that if my cat IS going out that something is wrong with the car to cause the cat to go bad (ie. timing off or something…)

but couldnt the 15 year old cat just be old and rusting off?

2

Do you have the stock header? The a-pipe rattle is common among most integras.

Cat rattling and going bad don’t necessarily go together. Cat can go bad without rattling, and it can also rattle without going bad.

3

stock header, so do I need to pull the cat off and look inside the a-pipe to see if the internals of the header are holding up?

4

Before you pull anything off, just take a look at the cat shield, there is one below and one above, it could be either of those; sometimes the bolts rust and break off. If the cat looks OK and it sounds like it is coming from the front, the A-pipe is a good suspect. The A-pipe has an inner tube that eventually rusts and breaks off and rattles inside the outer tube.

5

My old Teg’s heatshield rattled. I have a huge hole at the bottom of my driveway, and after a while of hitting it, it knocked the heatshield loose and it would rattle at about 2300 rpms if I remember right, but only there, and I think maybe at normal idle (750). But after more driveway pull-ins, the thing just fell off and I didn’t worry about it anymore.

6

thanks for the replys, i know this has been covered to death in other threads

i got home late tonight and i dont have a garage to work in so i’m going to put off jacking up my car until tomarrow, i peaked under the car and saw rusty holes right behind the cat but i really couldnt tell what it was just from leaning out my drivers side door, hopefully just the shielding, is there any reason to keep the shielding if it is the culprit or should i just get rid of the part that is rattling (if it is the shield)

7

If it is the heatshield, just get rid of it. You don’t really need it.

8

Haven’t had the problem on my DA, but I did on my S13 and I just took the shield off. It is there to protect the cat from damage mostly. Not sure if the one on the DA actually bolts on or if it is part of the cat.

9

well i got under the car today and the main rattle was actually from a piece of shielding right after the resonator, the bolts were rusted on but i got the small bracket holding the half that was rattling off and that stopped 95% of the rattle, i’ll cut the other bolts off this weekend to see if the rest of the rattle will go away