Okay I've searched through the various posts on noises coming from the engine, and I haven't found one that seems to be the same as mine.

A while back all the sudden I noticed a rattling noise coming from the engine. Standing outside the car while it was running it sounded like the belt was the noise. A mechanic friend of mine suggestedI putting a candle to the belt while it was running to see if the wax would make the belt quiet and it did for a while. The noise came back, so when I took my car to get an oil change at meineke, I also had them look at the belt to see what was making the sound. They took it off and said everything looked good, put the belt back on and then the sound was gone for about 2 weeks. It has since them come back. It is a rattling sound that begins to rattle faster when I give it gas, up until about 30-35 mph. Faster than that it seems to stop. I have noticed that sometimes it seems to get worse after using the AC. Also when the car is cold it usually doesn't happen, but after driving it at higher speeds for a little bit or just city driving for a while it starts to happen again. The rattling doesn't happen when I'm stopped however.

Hopefully this wasn't too confusing. Any ideas?

I would check all pullies by pulling the belts. Don't trust the mieneke guys.. do this test again, yourself. Observe the tensioner and it'* relation with the marks on the top of it.

Agreed........

Boost, does it sound like my problem, mayve an HB?

EK98 says that it doesn't do it at idle (if I read correctly). In that case, the harmonic balancer is not the first suspect.

In this case, I agree with Bill that the pulleys and the tensioner have to be checked first.

Have another person operate the gas in park while you watch what the belt, pulleys, and belt tensioner are doing. That will also give you a better idea of where the sound is coming from.

A rattle associated with the belt path when the HB is ruled out is typically a weak tensioner. I'd like to see where the tension marks are aligned on that sucker.

Otherwise it'* typically a single idler.

Update:

Today the noise seemed to be worse than normal. It also was making the rattle while idling in neutral and while in park.

Its very weird... the sound will be worse one time I drive, then the next time seems to be better. I'm just tired of hearing it and listening for it. If it is the HB how much do those normally run?

well depending on the sound it can be all of what is mentioned.

If the HB is bad, it will sound real bad, you can put your finger on the crank pulley and see if the rubber is torn, make sure its smooth, if it is the HB is fine.

Its about $100 for the big pulley.

Remove the belt (starting with a cold engine) and start it. You can run like this for a couple minutes. Is the noise gone? Did the tensioner seem to have good, smooth, strong resistance, or was it weak and 'jerky'?

I'll bet you that I'll nail your noise down within 5 minutes here.