i have same sound. found out exhaust bolt was kinda loose... i know. strange.

 

i would jus go through and make sure everything u can get a wrench on is snug and not loose or missing nuts ya know.

 

hav u dont any moding to it recently?

 

just an update for everyone:
I swapped the cams about a month ago, and since the swap job, the noise has disappeared. i looked for marks or any indication of any wear or tear and nothing was there. so not sure. but its gone for now.

 

Hmm thats weird. You didnt replace anything else or lube any pullies? Did you take the timing belt completely off?

 

nope! didnt replace anything or lubed them.
and the belt was off the cam gears during installation.
wierd!

 

I had the same sound on my first evo IX.and found out it was from an over-tightened tensioner..somehow after a cam install the tensior got "stuck" in a tight position and didnt loosen up..i had to disassemble it and kinda lube it with wd40

 

Which tensioner are you talking about?

 

my car does the same noise waiting for timing belt pulleys to arrive. the one that does more noise is the pulley of the a/c that had some clearance . good luck

 

My car started making a similar noise from the same area 3 weeks ago, its only done 31,000kms and has only basic mods such as intake and exhaust. I took it directly to Mitsi and they've now fixed the problem, after much running around and time wasting on their part.

I've copied their diagnosis below, hopefully this helps shed some light for those of you who experience this (apparently common) problem:

Investigated inconsistent noise behind the engine covers at the cambelt end of the engine. Removed auxillary belts to determine whether or not it was a drivebelt/aircon noise. Noise still present.

Stripped down cambelt, inspected all cambelt tensioners and idlers. Found one of the idlers had leaked grease, causing the bearing to be noisy. The hydraulic tensioner had reduced pressure.

Check bearings for cambelt idlers and replaced as necessary. Fit new waterpump, idlers and hydraulic tensioner. Retime motor and fit new cambelt. Fit drivebelts and retension. Run and check for leaks. All ok.

Hope this gives you guys an idea of what could possibly be causing the noise! Its worth mentioning that the noise came back the day after I got my car back, and it had to be taken back in again cos one of the idlers was faulty.

 

My buddy had the same issue and installed cams and the sound went away.

 

my 06 IX has the same noise. it is the serpentine belt pulley i ordered it yet but taked away the a/c belt and run the engine without it and some noise also comes from inside the timing belt so i ordered all the pulleys from the timing belt kit along with the timing belts. my car has 50000 km. something about 30k miles i think

 

I have this sound sometimes but only on a cold start... Im suree you pinpoint where it comes from soon

 

On the first day I received the car, I directly sent over to change wear and tear part including servicing.

This thing happened to me after changing Timing Belt to aftermarket (Power Enterprise). Some annoying sound came out during cold start at Timing Belt - Pulley area (bottom side). When idling slowly, i could hear the annoying sound. It take me almost a week to rectified & find the problem.

My mechanic quote, it happened due to the Timing Belt are "Old Stock" so he change to the OEM Belting. The problem solve.

 

there hasnt been a recall on this yet???, WTF, obviously theres a problem with the 9 and the pulley or whatever it is, i just hit 16,000 mile on mine, and what do you know, i just started getting this noise