Recently started hearing mild tapping at traffic stops. If I let go of brake pedal it goes away most of the time. Also if I keep brake pedal on but keep turning steering wheel - no noise. Keep brake pedal down and give it little gas (>1k rpms) - noise goes away.

Are there any common noises that are vacuum related?

 

Guess I have to buy a block of wood to keep the pedal pressed and go listen to the engine with a stethoscope.

Hi dmanaenk! '96 legacy brighton here too, sweet rides no doubt! anyway i get some good rattling just above idle which is loose heat shields. Sometimes but not always at idle it sounds like something is knocking once per engine rev, never figured out what it is, sounds like something hitting around the flex plate or whatever that is between the engine and AT that the starter engages to.

Hi dmanaenk! '96 legacy brighton here too, sweet rides no doubt! anyway i get some good rattling just above idle which is loose heat shields. Sometimes but not always at idle it sounds like something is knocking once per engine rev, never figured out what it is, sounds like something hitting around the flex plate or whatever that is between the engine and AT that the starter engages to.

Mine is MT, and my heat shields rattle around 2k when I'm slowing down on compression

It might be some new loose piece of heatshield, cause I do hear this noise only when warmed up.

Good that you mentioned frequency, mine is kinda low - maybe 3-4 times per second, which is what, 3 times lower than rpms in neutral?

Hm, good point, 600rpm would be 10rev/sec. That noise I hear is maybe twice per second so it's not every engine rev as I thought. I haven't heard it in a few months now. Hopefully these noises will go away!