08 Aveo5, 45k miles, engine progressively sounding worse (with audio)

[boatdink]

Everytime I start it up the engine is sounding worse and worse. Ticking gets louder and it idles funny. The car was fine when i bought it a month ago. Every scheduled maintenance has been performed and documented. The oil was changed 1k ago and it still looks good. I feel like majority of the ticking is the injectors but theres some new ticking thats getting worse; and when I listened underneath the hood it sounded like there was a vacuum leak. I've looked at every hose I could find and moved them around to see if the pitch of vacuum leak sound changed but with no success. Link with sound.

[boatdink]

I moved the microphone to the intake when you start to hear the most ticking, then I moved it to the passenger side strut mount when you start to hear the air leak.

[avguy]

You didn't mention anything about the way it's running, which is always important to know. One very helpful thing would be realtime OBD performance data, such as fuel trims, O2 voltages, and MAP pressure. If you can't borrow or rent a reader, lots of guys have had good luck with the Android Torque app.

[boatdink]

Thank you for your help. I'll be purchasing that app and an adapter and hopefully reply soon with the results.

[boatdink]

Ive bought the torque app and the obd2 adapter arrives tomorrow. I've done a little more research and replaced the plugs since my last post. I'm quite positive there's a vacuum leak but another problem I've been having is clicking noises on a could start. The clicks will last about 5 seconds and you can hear popping from the exhaust during that time. itll stop for 10 seconds in between cycles and by the third cycle ill hear a big "whoosh" from the exhaust, kind of like a flamethrower sound. The clicking and popping stop when the car has warmed up. Theres been a couple other posts on here claiming the same thing. The diagnoses was the EVAP system doing what it's supposed to and is totally normal. Is this true?

Also,
what are the normal numbers i should see when i perform the diagnostic with the torque app. What would be considered running lean or rich, what should I expect the h.p. to say and what will prove there is a vacuum leak? The car isnt throwing any codes, but something is wrong.