Sludge on flame arrestor

"Let's try this one.I have

"Let's try this one.I have a 454 with a Rochester Quadrajet. I had cleaned the secondaries and she ran just fine in all rmp ranges under load per my last post. However, after taking her out for a couple of days and just over 35 miles she kind bogged down and wouldn't burn any fuel above 3k rmp. She didn't stall above half throttle nor did she act like she wanted to. To me it was like it wasn't getting air. I loaded her back on the trailer and took her home and proceded to look for a new carb online. I found one but wanted to make sure it was the correct one. So I go out and open the hatch and start to take off the flame arrestor. That is when I noticed this graphite like stuff just filling the arrester. I was right, how could air get through this stuff. It wasn't on the engine just the arrester and the shaft it sit on top of the carb along with being on top of the flaps of the choke and carb. Now my question is where the heck would this stuf come from? My assumption is that it is an oil water mix. I too noticed that there is a thin layer of oil sitting atop of the antifreeze/coolant. I must have a gasket gone bad as there has been oil in the bilge aswell. Can someone shed some light on this?
Thank You,
Mike"

PS. Looking at the dipstick I

PS. Looking at the dipstick I see no water or sludge on it..... just oil.

"Do a cylinder leakdown test.

"Do a cylinder leakdown test. You may have blow-by and if the sludge is dark colored, it's probably from the crankcase fumes that normally come out through the breather(s). If the sludge is creamy tan, it has water in it. You didn't say how old the motor is or how many hours are on it but there are a lot of things that could be causing this. Bad head gasket being one of them but I wouldn't make any assumptions until checking it out fully."

"I'm with Jim. This is mo

"I'm with Jim. This is most likely a symptom of a larger problem. Unfortunatly, the sludge is not causing the engine to starve for air, rather , what is causing the sludge is causing your performance problem. It sounds like escessive blow-by caused by an internal problem."