Ticking and no acceleration

I am some what car literate but this stumps me. It also made for an 3 hour drive home.
When I start the car and drive a short distance then turn off the car it sometimes does the following.
A ticking sound starts sound sort of like when a spak plug cable is shorting against the block but much louder. It speeds up in perfect harmony with the RPM in fact if it wasn't so loud I would insist it was the cables arching.
Second all power is completely diminished only in low gear at high RPM can I get it to move, and thius does not feel healthy.
The problem goes away in a random period of time some times after leaving sit for awhile or starting and stoping, but sometimes just by driving it or letting it idle for a while. It seems to be getting worse as today I was almost sure it wouldn't rectify itself. But did after I decided to limp home a short distance at a time.

I am driving a 1997 Grandam SE V6

Any ideas would be appreciated.

Thanks