I am thinking it could be dirty fuel injectors. I had a simmilar type problem on my '99 SE. Sounded almost like I had sucked a valve. IIRC, it didn't get any louder as I gave it moe gas. Could be wrong though because it was a while back.
Pured a bottle of the Chevron with Techron injector cleaner, and a tank later the ticking had subsided. There was always a faint ticking sound though. Guess that is the normal tick. Can't be bad I guess because I have 206,000 miles on the car now.
