possible heat shield rattle?

[daswusgood]

So I've lately been noticing a small front end rattle that occurs only in the 2100-2500 rpm range of my 02 lgt. I can hear it it any gear except neutral and its more noticable as the engine winds down. My first thought was heat shield but after getting under my car with a screwdriver and smacking the shields above the cats i couldn't find any rattle. I really don't want to pay a shop 70 bones to tack weld something but i'm getting impatient and the noise is quite annoying. Any thoughts?

-also i have a blown cat that im replacing soon with the dual oem unit from boxer4. Could the rattle be related to the cat?

[MarkSubi]

With ur cat broken have you backed fired at anytime?

[daswusgood]

no backfiring, and the motor runs well

[ouch1011]

If the cat is back, it could be the substrate brick in the cat has come loose from the case and is rattling. Happens a lot. I'd wait until after you replace the cats since you are going to do it anyway, then if you still have the noise, you know what it isn't.