98 Prelude making weird noise when downshifting

Hey, can anyone give me a better clue? I keep hearing my 98 Prelude making a weird noise when I downshift. It doesn't happen all the time, but only on certain random occasions, and when it happens you can hear it from both outside the car and inside it. The best way to describe the noise is if you've seen "Dumb and Dumber." You know the part where Jim Carey asks if the other guy wants to hear an annoying sound, and then he makes that annoying sound. That's very much like the sound that I hear from my Prelude. I've asked my friends who know a good deal about cars who have been in the car with me when "the noise" so conveniently graced us with its presence. One of my friends, whose torn apart two cars and built them back up again, has never heard that sound ever before. He doesn't know where to start. Another one of my friend's best guess is that it might be a belt. However, neither of them has really worked on a Honda so they aren't too confident about their ventures. So I come before all of you to ask if any of you has ever encountered, or heard of, such a situation. I don't know where to start, and its not that big of a problem (I don't think?), because the Lude still runs like a champ. But like all of you, I imagine, I just don't like to hear weird noises coming from my car that I don't know about or that I haven't strategically put there. Thanks in advance for any and all of your suggestions.

Auto or Manual?

It's a manual.

You will get a better answer if you give a more detailed problem. Is it when you downshift at high RPM? I haven't seen dumb and dumber in awhile.. is the noise a grinding noise, or squeak, or something else?

Well, the sound comes on when I downshift at mid to lower rpm (4000 and down). I've noticed sometimes it occasionally comes on at around 4000 rpm, but for the most part it comes on at and under 3200 rpm more consistently. It gets annoying to the point where everytime it happens I have to stop downshifting and slip the gear into neutral and use the brakes to slow the car down so that the sound will stop. Once the sound starts, it won't stop until either I put the car in neutral, or the car is at a complete stop (meaning there's no more need for downshifting anymore, which is the action that initiates the sound). And even after I put the car into neutral, the sound still goes on a little bit more (like a second or two more) before it shuts up. That's why I have assumed that the car makes a sound when I downshift, because that's the only time the car makes any sound like that.

As for the sound itself, it's more like a whining sound, kinda higher than mid-pitch (not too high, not too low, but higher than an average tone). Think of an alarm clock alarm that makes a sound at about an average tone (the beep, beep, beep sound). Now imagine that beep being constant with no pauses in it (beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep). That could be another way of describing it. Better?

Maybe you should take it to a honda specialist and tell us about it when you get an answer.. I have never heard of anything like that.

Is it like an electric beep, or mechanical?