I have a 2000 civic. Specs: dual Super Street short ram intake, Accel ignition wires, Bosch iridium sparks pugs, VW (not that lime green junk) style euro guage display, Eclipse heat unit (matches the neon blue gauges!), Eclipse 8 disc changer, Nakamichi speakers all around with a JBL sub amp and a JBL 10" GTI. Thats about it for now, other than that, it is one of the sleepiest sleepers (stock wheels and everything).

On to my question. My exhaust system (stock, about to be upgraded to wider pipes and a bigger muffler to hold down the lawn mower noise) rattles like no other. Apparently, some others have had this problem through asking around. I found half the problem, part of it was the heat shield over my muffler. Its welds corroded by my citie's salty humid air. I put one of those back straps around it that utilizes a screw to tighten and also plumbers use it (works great). Recently, another rattle could be heard. But only when the engine was around 2.5-4 RPM. It is very tinny. You can hear it from the frontal bottom of the car and from the engine. A mechanic told me its the heat shield of my cat converter, I have yet to look at it but what are your thoughts? I could use an answer for I wouldnt mind spending another $3 to fix this embarrasing problem!

 

i recently had the same problem and i went to a muffler shop and they cut off the heat sheild just below the catalyitic converter. so just do what i did and get the shield cut off.

 

Im not a gear head, only an enterior master (modifing, and audio), but isnt the heat shield there for a reason?

 

B4 I get under my car, where is the heat shield located?

 

just find whatever is loose, and tighten it. You don't gotta take off the whole thing just cuz it's rattling.

 

there could be rocks in your muffler .. that happened to me. shoulf be pretty easy to get out though
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MIKE

 

Mine did the ratteling thing too. My heat shields were loose and made a nasty ratteling noise right at 1500 RPM. When I got my new exhaust this solved the problem because the new one of course eliminated the part with the shields on it. However on my stock one the shield was rivited on there so it couldn't be tightened. The only reason they're there is if you like park in tall dry grass in a drought lol.

 

Thanks for all the advice guys. But I dont think there are rocks in mine. Its coming from right under the front seats of the car. Ill get it fixed when I get some time. If i cant tighten it, ill take it to a metal shop and get the son of a b**** spot welded.

 

I took my sled to a body shop because I know a bunch of guys there (and they do the best body work Ive seen! The are the sole ferrari fixers 'round here') to look at my manifold, turns out its not a strap job. I am not a gear head but I have an IQ of 150, basically I can do what I put my head to. Here thes deal, I heard that honda has some 8 year warrenty on the exhaust system. Is that true? If not is it hard to remove this heat shield? Judging from the looks of it, Im going to have to go thru the top of my car and fix it. What can I do and ow do I do it?

 

i had that problem, but come to find out, my exhaust piping was rubbing vibrating against the heat shiels, what i did was cut the rubber tube that holds an intake to the throttle body, and put that between the piping and the heatshield.