Well....due to me wanting to get my compression correct between the cylinders of a twin listeroid, ONE of the cylinders required a "minimalistic" approach with the base gasket below the cylinder.  AND...this VERY thin gasket resulted in some oil being evenly distributed about the bottom end of my engine...on the OUTSIDE.  So...me ordered a goodly sized tube of RTV...for a caulking gun, and went to work.  After spraying down the twin with a pressure washer, drying it off, and then cleaning the vertical and horizontal mating surface with some goodly quantity of carburetor cleaner (and then wiping it off clean), I caulked the hell out of that joint between the body of the engine and #1 cylinder.  AND FOR GOOD MEASURE, I figured I'd also aptly caulk under the cam follower support housings for the valves....(being that I don't know the formal "kennel name" for such things...ahem "Valve Tappet Guide")

Well....do YOU know that those blasted valve tappets DO slide up and down, inside those guides?  Who'd have thought?  And...if you don't watch it, those valve tappets WILL slide RIGHT OUT of those guides, and deposit themselves down into the bowels of a lister?  Well....it was time for an oil change anyway. 

And so...after draining the oil from the sump, I managed to find that entire valve tappet, safely bathed in a goodly quantity of perfectly-good 500-hour oil.  And I thought to myself, "Now....I'm not that flexible so as to wrap my arm up under that crankshaft, over the camshaft, place that valve tappet up into its location...AND hold it in place with the OTHER hand, while also balanced upon a 2-foot flywheel"  Nope. 

Hmmm...I thought.  There, THERE in the recesses of the laboratory is a 10-foot cutting of some spare 14-gauge solid electrical wire.  AND IF I WERE SMART, I'd form that into a bit of a fish-tape.  And so....I grabbed the ground-wire off that bunch of Romex 14 gauge wire, and fished it DOWN from the valve tappet guide hole, to the inside of the cam, to the outside of the crankshaft, down into the sump...and out the door. 

I wrapped that 14-gauge wire around the valve tappet about 5 or 4 times, then dog-legged the last wrap, so that any tension I placed upon that wire as I was pulling the valve tappet back through the inner workings of that listeroid would cause the thin-end to travel first. 

DO YOU KNOW that within about 30 seconds of wrapping that valve tappet in wire, and a few "words of encouragement", I had the stub of that valve tappet pinched between my fingers, perched on top of the hole for the valve tappet guide? 

Yep.  And that's how I slayed the dragon today. 

I have imported 2 in the last...8 years or so.  Be aware that there's a "price point" where you can slip in without paying import duties.  But above that price level, it can get expensive.  You'd have to research that price point.  Might have changed over time.

The Lister manual calls out to lubricate the "far side", through the lubrication port (as you mention).  BUT....if you've ever torn apart a Listeroid, you'll immediately notice that the  "far side" bushing really gets no lubrication (save some vapors....).  This, for the twin design.

Thus, Butch told me to consider lubricating this "far side" by way of a lubricate by-pass.  I pull some oil from the oil pump, and by way of external lines, pipe it to a "pipe thread" I've machined into the  "far side" cam follower positioning bolt.  As far as I'm concerned, this adaptation has provided me more than 2,000 hours on my 16/2, with no issue upon that far bearing...

Owen- Are you located in the states, or UK?

Folks- I've been plagued by disproportionate white smoke coming out the exhaust of #2 cylinder of my 16hp twin.  Oily residue drips/sputters from that muffler.  No matter how I adjusted the proportioning rods to change the relative pump fuel delivery, it had NO benefit.  I thought it might have been a difference in compression between the two cylinders; rigged up a compression gauge and ran each cylinder under-power...and NO significant difference.  Thought it might have been poor valve fit.  Lapped all the valves at the 1,000 hour rebuild.  NO benefit.  Thought it might have been rings or the condition of the cylinder walls (not seating the rings).  Nope.  By re-lapping the cylinders, NO benefit.  New rings.  NO benefit. 

Then one day, I was searching the internet for other possible causes.  Pump timing.  NOW....I'd made a custom built camshaft, using the existing pined on cams.  I'd advanced both pump-timing cams by 3-degrees, getting me into the efficiency of ~ 26 degrees of pump advance BTDC.  And, the efficiency of the engine DID improve, as per the university study.  But....the white smoke....

Now, everybody knows about adjusting the length of the cam follower, so as to optimize the pump timing. Me, I'm of the opinion that THIS method ONLY STARTS or RETARDS the pump timing, but does NOT change the PEAK timing...at all.  THUS, I build a new cam. 

So, in furtherance of pump timing:  As an experiment, I placed some standard automotive body shims under the mating surface of the pump and cam cover.  1/32 of an inch.  Thus, RETARDING the START of the pump timing, but NOT affecting the location of PEAK timing.  And...sure enough.  The white smoke went away.  The oily drippage stopped.  AND, referencing the oil pressure gauge, it's no longer bouncing around all over the place.  Matter of fact, once the engine warms up, the needle barely moves off the 3-5 PSI indicator. 

This engine's got almost 2,000 hour on it.  Dare I say, I may be one of the few who use these engines as true day-in-day-out prime movers. 

BTW- for those following my exploits.....the toilet-paper oil filter works just fine. 

Hmmmm.....a muffler uses the same principle as a silencer.  Surface area and COOLING are the critical elements to success.  So....what if we simply used existing technology/parts to do the same? 

Have a look at this link.  I think this may work.....

https://www.infiltratorwater.com/products/chambers/

Powdermonkey

Folks:  I'm NOT asking if this is "right or wrong".  I already know the answer to THAT question.  And any engineer worth his salt will agree (though on only some level)....(sounds like "no good Scotsman to me....)

So, capacitance (actually "Inductance") within a generator head is largely forgotten in the modern vernacular of modern-day generators.  But, many of us know that LRA (locked rotor amperage) is a defining factor in getting a motor to turn, when using a generator.  It ain't the "run" amps that you need to START a device, it's the "LRA" that counts. 

Now, given the MASSIVE flywheels of a Lister-design, and as a function of them, the VAST momentary momentum (instantaneous horse-power (ahem....torque)), these engines are, compared to modern "engineering"....most amazing. 

So then, to a poll I propose:

Given (let's say) a 8 HP lister design...or perhaps a 12 hp (as in my case)....what's the LARGEST generator head anyone has used to pull massive 1 power-factor at some astounding momentary amperage (given the horsepower of the engine)? 

OBVIOUSLY, I'm not talking about using an 8 or 12 hp lister to pull a demand of 12 or 20 KW of power, on a constant-demand basis.  That would be absolutely ludicrous....all would agree.  But...let's say that you've got an air conditioner at 220V, that pulls 60 amps on locked-rotor-amperage.  Demand at that 60 amps is....1 second?  And then, after that, you're running the AC unit at 12 amps.   Nothing substantial for the 8 or 12 hp engine. 

I'm contemplating running a 20 KW ST head on my 12 hp single.  This, to overcome the LRA demands of several "intermittent" electrical motors within  a potential "emergency circuit".  The flywheel on the engine, as well the flywheel on the 20 ST head will provide substantial instantaneous power...

I'm not asking for theoretical opinions about this, from the brotherhood-of-electrical-power-generation.  I'm asking for "real-world" results from this craft, who have bothered to "tickle the dragons belly"....