Bought a 96 GSR back in March as the 2nd owner. Everything is bone stock on this car, down to the radio. The car has been making a rattling noise around 3000-3400RPM range. Running on the highway for two hours mitigates the sound a little. I've taken some of the exhaust shielding off around the cat, but the noise is still there. This leads me to believe this is the shielding around the exhaust manifold. This is really annoying, especially driving in town. Do I just need to buy an aftermarket header? Does anyone have this problem?

 

its nothing a muffler shop cant diagnose. 40 bucks out of your pocket usually to have them diagnose/repair the problem.

u could do it yourself if you're confident with your jackstands and know how to weld.

 

Can't confirm, but I have been told before that these engines have a rattle around that rpm range that can be coming from the engine bearings. How many miles?

 

She's got 213k on her, but I doubt it's the bearings. Any bearing that would make that noise would have gone out a long time ago. It's a very loud rattle. Also, my engine would literally explode if it was a bearing when I hit redline.

I don't really have any money (going to college) so I might try taking the heat shield off of the exhaust manifold. When I get money again, I should just buy an aftermarket header.

 

i doubt its that heatshield. its likely the one above the cat, or the ones near it.

 

Probably the one around the cat. The metal is quite thin where the two halves bolt together, so it could just corrode away and be left hanging and allowed to rattle.

For mine, I just used a hose clamp to clamp the heatshield right up against the cat and prevent any vibrations.

You can also just rip it right out if the other bolts are easy to remove.

 

Also check the springs holding the cat and pipe together.

 

sounds like you have the infamous downpipe rattle gsr's are known for. basically, the downpipe is double walled and the weld's on the inner wall break allowing it to rattle against the outer.

you can try to find another downpipe or just replace the entire thing with an aftermarket header.

 

I did remove the shielding around the cat so that's not it. I think I will tolerate it for now until I find a header. Thank you everyone who posted.