MR2 Owners Club

My newest trophy (a banana-yellow rev2, 1993) has a very distinct rattle -starts abruptly at around 2000RPM and disappears promptly at higher revs. Coming from the engine bay. Stationary, driving, cold/hot, clutch in/out, etc, all the same. I've checked the heat shields to see if any were loose or worn, all seems fine, same for any other obvious parts which could work loose. It appears to emerge from near the air intake, but I can't pinpoint it exactly. No loss of power, drives smoothly.
Anyone any suggestions?

Thanks, Andrew

My guess would be heat shield or exhuast, I used to get a similar thing on my MK1, eventually traced to the exhaust manifold heat shield

I checked all the heat shields (managed to avoid burning my fingers groping around under the heat shields ), but apart from finding a few grotty bolts nothing causes a rattle
I've read that the noise could come from the butterfly valves in the air inlet or even cam belt tensioners?

Never heard of the TVIS/ACIS or Throttle butterflies causing a rattle at a fixed rpm on an MR2 or the cam belt tensioner for that matter. With mine the only way I found the rattle was by taking the heat shields off.

Problem solved Indeed a heat shield , but the small unit under the intake manifold. I spent a lot of time looking at the exhaust heat shields until a friend pinpointed the culprit within 5 minutes looking&listening .
Thanks for your suggestions!

excellent, glad you found it and it's an easy fix. That kind of rattle can be very annoying