i just bought a 93 f150 xlt.with a 5.0 just wondering what year was the first to recieve a roller motor?

 

The motor itself is probably roller cam compatible, but they didn't start putting the roller cams into the F-series until the '94 models.

 

The caption of this diagram will help you collect most of the truck's other features, and put them into your signature here so you won't have to retype them each time, and we won't have to ask or go looking for them:


(phone app link)

 

Some of the 93's had roller cams with the standard firing order. By 94 all of the 302's had roller cams with the HO firing order.
BLD is right that roller cam compatible blocks were used starting in about 87.
So if you don't have one you can install one, but odds are really good that you could already have it in there.

 

This is my '93's original 5.8L block. Even under all the sludge, it doesn't look roller-ready to me (but I'm not familiar with roller engines):


(phone app link)

This is its Jasper replacement:


(phone app link)

This describes the change in firing orders:


(phone app link)

 

No your engines won't be roller cam ready because they're 351. They didn't put roller compatible 351's into trucks until 95. And even then they still used the flat tappet lifters and cam.
Roller cam and lifters can be found in 96 and 97 351's that came in F250 and F350.

The 302 got the roller compatible block in 87 but they still used flat tappets until mid 92 - that's when they started putting standard firing order roller setups in the trucks.
94 saw the HO grind roller cam that continued through to 96.

Identifying a roller block you would be looking for 2 small bosses near the front and back of the lifter galley floor. They were to bolt down the 'spider' plate that held the lifter retainer (dogbones) down.
Those bosses were there in 87, some were drilled and tapped, some were only drilled and some were just there but not drilled out.
Also I believe the lifter bores were slightly longer.
That's to identify the block.

Easiest way to identify if it has a roller cam installed without pulling the intake is to pull the distributor and look at the gear. A flat tappet cam will have a cast distributor gear - you can see the rough casting marks where it isn't machined.
A roller lifter cam will have a fully machined distributor gear - no rough casting areas anywhere. Those 2 gears are specific to the style of cam (roller or flat tappet) and can not be used with the other style cam (catastrophic failure territory).

 

Not the best picture quality, but illustrating what Chris was talking about above. This is a 351w out of a 97 F250 with roller cam, lifters, etc. The two bosses Chris was talking about are circled in black.

 

Good to know. I only recently became a V8 Bronco owner (I've always preferred my I6), and I've never had to dig into a smallblock V8 to that degree.

 

would the casting number provide a definite answer?

 

I doubt it... as Chris mentioned above the roller compatible blocks were used starting in 87 but they didn't start using the actual roller cam until 93. So the castings on the block won't help. You'll have to pull the distributor to look at it.