The issue with the original "slider" cams is something I've vbeen refering to as "base circle wear" for 20-ish years....
What happens is that the back side of the lobe wears a groove across the face of the follower, when the lobe tip rides through this groove at full lift it causes the follower to "hop" as the lobe tip pops out, this creates a second "chatter grove" across the face of the follower.
IF you are running a turbo engine on the original electronics the knock sensoir hears this as a spark knock, pulls timing and dumps boost.
This is exaggerated by the fact that this hopping and clicking tends to cause cracks in the hardened surface of the tip of the cam lobe...
and while all this is going on where do you think those metal chips are going?
yes they all wind up in the oil filter but not before taking a bite out
of the oil pump rotors...
The Ranger roller cam is essentially the same lift and duration without ANY of the headaches.
As for it being roller Vs slider, it is assumed that you'd be swapping the followers with it, and yes the 07-87(when they switched to the roller cam) through the end of 1994 model year production (1995-up is very different) swaps directly into any 2.3LIMA cylinder head.
I would not run a LIMA 4cylinder for ANY purpose without one of the factory roller cams.
It has long been proved that on a factory iron head that the 2.3 turbo engine is relatively insensitive to cam timing.
I have one cam here that I know for absolute fact has 225,000 miles on it and after cleaning off the varnish it is indestinguishable from one with known to have <1000 miles on it. (I installed it as a replacement into my brother's beater truck and the engine doppped piston two weeks later)
Another selling point will be revealed when you do this simple thing... try turning the cam gear by hand with slider followers... can't do it can you?
No try the same thing with the roler followers... turns pretty easy doesn't it?
Now I'm not going to say that'll translate into more power at the flywheel,
but it for damned sure willl reduce strain on the timing belt...
if you have the chance to do so swap on a set of the later "round tooth" timing belt pullies (crank, cam and accessory shaft) the round tooth belts are less likely to shed teeth and allow the timing to jump
AD