I can't tell you what size cam will fit, you'll have to check the room for yourself. As for a solid lifter cam, yes you can convert a 5.0 to a solid lifter cam but you would be losing a lot of bottom end torque. Roller lifters allow for extremely fast ramp speeds which will open the valves a lot faster for a given lift and duration. This means you get better cylinder filling at a lower lift and you keep most of the top end power. This is an over simplification but, you can write a book on the differences. Solid lifters give you one advantage over hydraulic lifters. . .RPM! Solids allow you to run higher rpm's because the length of the lift (thus valve lift) remains constant since there is no pumping up of the lifter that might cause ugly things to happen in your engine. You get more power but usually at a much higher RPM than a roller.
It's kinda like this, Roller cams are the best thing since round wheels (my opinion) You can build power all over the rpm range without suffering the ill effects you get with solids or plain hyd. cams.
|