I have a horrible, embarassing ticking noise too. I have had it for so long, and I am finally getting sick of it. It starts when I start the car, increases with rpm, and sometimes SOMETIMES dulls to a barely audible click if I drive a long time at standard operating temp but is always there.
I took it to my local Subaru jerks (I hate them so much), and they took a *LOT* of my money to fix a "valve lash adjuster" and it didn't change anything. When I started it up afterward when I picked it up it was still ticking but they basically said "Not our problem. You said do a valve lash adjuster, and we did. Sorry it didn't fix your ticking. If you pay us more, we can look into it further."
I can't keep spending $100s of dollars guessing at wtf this is. My local "professionals" are stumped, so what can I do from here?
Edit: checking flexplate ASAP based on this threads suggestion. I'll upload an audio clip of just how bad it is tonight or tomorrow.
Edit2: Also, I have had a knock sensor CEL on for a while. I have 2 new knock sensors to go in (which I am having done for 0.7 hours time per the TSB
). If this horrible tick is still there, then I should still have the CEL even with new sensors, right?