Driving home tonight thought I heard a strange pitch when accelerating so turned off the radio and rolled down the window and heard a sort of mild-in-volume-but-high-in-pitch noise when the car got to or above 2100-2200 rpms. Pulled over and did a brief experiment in a parking lot... in park and revving up to 2500 no strange noise. In Drive and revving up to 2500 heard the same noise as when driving. in 3rd and revving up to 2500 it sounded more hoarse and "uglier". The noise got worse-sounding each gear down to 1st where it sounded wretched.

Car is at 80k and I take good care of it and only hammer on occasion. I can't accomplish anything tonight and will give an update tomorrow, but any ideas on what I should be checking out??

After checking things out in the daylight and messing around I cannot find anything visible to attribute the noise to.

My big concern is that I only hear it with the car in a driving gear, not "P" or "N", haven't tried "R". Is this the beginning of the end for my tranny?

Any ideas guys? Anything at all at this point I am willing to check into

Sorry Dober, I don't have a clue, or even know where to begin to start guessing.

Ok guys, noise is back and not sounding good. However, after doing a lot of listening, inside and out, and driving around with other people to get their opinions this is the verdict -- it is not a grinding noise, but rather the sound of something loose bouncing around against metal. Think of a marble in an empty soda can for lack of a better comparison.

Let me stress that the car is still shifting and driving normal, just making this noise at about 1500rpm up to 3k rpm. I cannot see anything loose from under the car, so does anyone have any ideas - no matter how "unlikely" - for what could be banging around loose? A bearing or something in the tranny? Some part of the exhaust system that could be shaking with the engine under load?

i hate to say this but my car did something like that when i spun my main bearings, just a thought.

bad news or not I'm glad to hear any possibilities. How big of a problem was that to get fixed? I'm guessing it wasn't a DIY project - what did a shop charge you?

for poops and grins check your swaybar endlinks.

could be two things I know that an exaust will make a similar noise like that, I am not sure what causes it but it does do any harm to the engine. The second is what GTP4LIFE said I lost my main bearing and it got worse the more that I drove it...but it could be somehting diffrent

I had the same problem ,and brother, ur not gonna like the answer your main bearing is spun and no its not hard to fix(if you know how to rip a motor apart!!!!!) Im hopin im wrong but that sounds like a spun bearing sorry life sux sometimes.

Spun main bearing seems to be concensus so far. Herc, took your advice and checked the swaybar endlinks and just about everything else I could get to and nothing looks like the culprit - though it looks like quite a few things could use a good cleaning and I've got a CV Boot developing a tiny crack - it's so enlightening to find these things out

If spun main bearing is the issue anyone have a write-up? Or should I just get it to a good mechanic?

A spun main will need the bottom end torn apart and redone. If your asking for a write up I'd either
Take it to a competent mechanic
or if you wanna try it yourself
Get a manual and all the special tools required like a hefty torque wrench, that stuff to check bearing cleances etc. the book will tell you what you need and all the specs for a rebuild and by the way the motor needs to come out of the car for this job.