Hello Rob,

Ford in Canada started putting roller lifters in all CVH engines late in 1988. In the UK the Sierra 1.8 cvh had roller lifters as well - however that engine had very small intake ports
and tiny valves. The standard low performance CVH engines in Canada had the same small port small valve head too. In Canada we had the 1.9 HO (High Output) engine option.
This engine (1988+) had roller lifters and a camshaft with more lift and much more duration
that the standard roller lifter camshaft. It is very interesting that the 1.9 HO roller cam has
nearly identical opening and closing valve timing as the Newman turbo cam.

Ford 1.9 HO cam is 276 deg intake/ 276 degree exhaust 0.440" lift(int and exh) 115 deg lobe center.

The benefit here is roller lifters with a decent camshaft profile. The standard 1.9 HO was 110 hp and 120 lb. ft. torque. Not too bad for a normally aspirated model with poor flowing intake manifold and small diameter exhaust system.

The top of the lifter bores in the heads are machined flat, and have a small steel retaining plete that locates the flat sides on the lifter. (you can see the flat sides at the top of the lifter in the picture.)