Rollers don't need as much oil as flat tappets. And a flood is better when you are sliding two surfaces together such as the rod shell bearings etc - using pressurized oil. The cam may be OK depending on thrown oil (I don't know for certain) but I prefer oil directed onto the centers of the cam lobes.
And Comstock must prefer a better oiling system to the cam as well or he never would have rifle drilled his cam, drilled the cam lobes, plumbed oil to the cam, and put together a higher capacity oil pump to keep up - that's a hell of a lot of work if its for no purpose.
Back to rollers - if you eliminate the steel plate between the main roller and the timing gear - the bearing will be destroyed - I think this is because of TOO MUCH OIL blowing back and forth between the timing chest allowed the rollers to slide instead of turning and eventually making flat spots on the rollers - in that case too much lube is a bad thing but you won't have the same problem with a cam where more oil wedging between the surfaces is a good thing. BTW - Old Porche spider motors with roller rod bearings and bean oil will also wear flats on them if you don't race them and keep them above 2000 or 3000 RPM (street spyders must use shell bearings) - the rollers will not spin at low RPM but just slide inside the bearing.
No, a flood is not better. Rod bearings rely on a hydrodynamic wedge which occurs under controlled conditions of load, oil pressure, speed, viscosity, and probably a half dozen other thingies.
This is a good example of problem definition. A solution hunting for a problem. Jim Comstock has not responded as to why he rifled drilled his cam and if it were such a great improvement (or even success) some young entrepreneur would be hawking it as better than the next coming of Jesus Christ if you know what I mean. This falls in the same category as when Herb Becker and I went down the rabbit hole of a 180 degree crank with a middle bearing and feed - trying to solve a problem that was not there. It caused all sorts of other real problems that we should have seen coming - and we paid dearly.
So if you want to promote pumping extra oil over this and that because you
think it is a good idea - have at it. I'll take and promote a common sense approach based on a true understanding of what, if any, problem needs to be addressed. I won't recommend it and will certainly discourage it; who needs extra windage in the crankcase?
As for lubricating the rollers - the point I was trying to make is that the right amount of oil gets to these nested away roller bearings. A camshaft hanging out in the torrent of oil mist in the crankcase is certainly getting an adequate quantity of oil - except maybe at start up. Forget about real or perceived targeting of slinging oil from the sides of the rods - that plot is lost. There are numerous examples of cams in engines with no problems whatsoever so that leads me to look elsewhere rather than doing something because one thinks more is better or something like that.
If you research the lubrication recommendation for the NJ306E at the speeds in the Norton application, it is
oil misting. I seem to recall reading that too much oil may cause a heat problem with high speed roller bearings; probably another reason not to be squirting gobs of extra oil into the crankcase without a demonstrated reason.
