Kyle_83RX7

I have a 1983 Mazda RX-7 GSL, 12a rotary and no turbo, with stock carburetor. I've owned it for about a year and 2 months now. The car was restored professionally by previous owners and in the past year I've daily driven it to school and work, and it's never had an issue aside from a slave cylinder about a month ago, easy $100 fix and it's been good since then. I've put about 15,000 problem free miles on the car, about 2 months ago I did an oil change and changed all the belts on the car, so it's been properly main maintained. As far as abuse goes I've drag raced it a few times on the highway but never really torn the car to ****. Well this morning I was taking the girlfriend on a trip for our anniversary, and when I started it this morning everything was fine and nothing out of the ordinary. Everything was fine until about a hundred miles into the trip. Between the hundred (ish) mile checkpoint when I stopped for food, and when I pulled into a gas station about 80 miles from there, a ticking started happening. I didn't hear the sound over the road noise and radio, until I pulled up to a red light and heard ticking. The ticking sounds like when you put a card in your spokes of a bike as a kid, and it's RPM sensitive. Turned off the air conditioning and sound still continues. Checked the oil and was about a quart low, so I added oil. Oil was not discolored at all, again, everything checked out. All gauges read normal, no overheating was occurring. Checked hoses to the carburetor and everything was plugged in fine, no cracks or leaks. Checked exhaust and sound isn't an exhaust leak. Checked plug wires and everything's in how it should be. Belts are good, filled the car up with gas and sea foam and let it run for a minute but the sound didn't stop. There's no issue idling whatsoever, I didn't feel any loss of power and the car still seemed to run perfectly fine. But whatever happened happened within the last 80 miles of driving. Since this issue came up I have had the car parked with a tow truck on the way to get me home because I'm not trying to take any chances even if it is something small. I took the air breather off the carburetor and found a few leaves and took those out but they didn't change the sound, which seems to be coming from within the carburetor. I've been here for 3 hours now, checked fuses and everything that could be checked without tools and everything checks out. So what could this be? Has anyone had an issue like this before and can help direct me to how to fix it? Could it be a blown rotor or apex seal? Please help