Probably a loose belt, bene. Most likely, the higher RPMs are just moving it fast enough that it's not as slack. Just tighten the tensioner a bit...

 

To follow up, I have put 20k miles on my car since the ticking (driving about 80 miles or more a day) and the tick remains, has not become worse, and the car still drives great.

99k miles!!! woohoo

 

The Lancer has little hydrolic lifters. The ticking noise is those lifters running without being primed with oil. It's very common. Just fallow the advise given of not running the car hard untill the noise goes away. There is a chance of collapsing the lifter.

 

pretty sure its a typical mitsu trait.

 

lifter ticking noise....i think the only way to fix is it is an oil dropper

 

since there are soooo many threads about strange ticking noises I will post this link for everyone. hopefully we can figure out if anyone/everyone is having the same or different noise coming from their car.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vkKzgVstzc

On a side note. after the car is warm it will sometimes go away.

 

Ah, I'm glad I came across this thread. I just noticed the noise recently, ever since its gotten real cold here. It ticks at first then goes away quickly after the engines warmed up some. Thanks for the info.

 

mine woudl warm up and go away but sometimes it doesnt go away. its annoying. not that the sound bothers me all that much, its the idea of not knowing what is causing it. especially since I Have never touched anything with the valvetrain/drivebelts/timing etc

 

It's a normal mitsubishi thing, nothing to worry about.

 

I use 0-30 and I dont have a tick. I dont get too cold of tems here, high 20s-low30s is the coldest I see.

 

mine is a 06 with almost 50k miles on it. my friend also told me it was normal and that your car will make plenty of weird scary sounds when its cold and just let it warm up and they will go away. cus oil is think and cold and the belts are cold and stiff and they all need to warm up. started after i got my oil changed the first time and scared me for a while but i know its ok now. thank god.

 

ok cool. well I will see what it does after some considerable warming up(read beating the hell out of it)

 

Mine ticked like crazy since the day it rolled off the dealer lot. At 44k I adjusted the valve lash to exactly the factory spec, and no change. It's nothing to worry about, these are just noisy engines.

 

mine sounds like this! I get a valve tick (or atleast thats what i thought it was) but it more or less sounds like a belt. and its coming from the same spot as in this video ( i know i dont have an evo, but the belts are on the same side).

it also goes away after the engine is warm,,,sometimes takes longer than other times.