SOLVED
I took it to the shop, $550 and an earful later, turns out everything in the front of the engine (wp pulley, wp pump, tensioners, etc) was finger loose. So either the harmonic vibrations backed them all off, or I'm a dumbass and didn't torque it down properly. Pretty sure I torqued it down properly but I didn't use loctite so that might have been the issue. Replaced the one mechanical tensioner that I didn't replace with my pulley job and a new WP (again)
Summary is to check your pulleys, tensioners, and WP first if sound is coming from the front of the engine.
INITIAL ISSUE
Can anyone identify this noise (high pitched ticking)? Car is a 2002 330ci
The noise first appeared last night when I was leaving work, but disappeared in the morning. Noise was also not prevalent during the afternoon, or when I went to night school.
When I started it up after school, it was also not prevalent. I swerved around some road kill on the hwy, and I'm pretty sure I missed it. But I pulled over shortly after that, and the noise was there AND WORSE THAN LAST NIGHT.
I'm not aware if the noise came up during the drive home. The drive home was fine too, good power, good coolant temps, etc.
It almost seems like the common denominator is cold ambient temps.
Video of yesterday's noise:
Video of today's noise is the 2nd one (starts at the ground).
Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk