[Bored&Stroked]

Something to note - it kind of depends on how early the pan is and what the pump pickup is like. On the early engines, there was no big round assembly with a screen on the end of the pickup - it was more like Flathead Ted shows - just an intake tube. Also, the oil pans were different - they had one long sump (not a big sump in the back like the later pans). So, the baffle plate probably helped keep oil on the pickup. When you put a later pump in these engines you can either make a custom pickup (as Flathead Ted is doing) and still run the original baffle plate, or you can hack up the plate to get the later pickup through it . . . or you can remove the plate entirely.

Me, I'd probably hack up the plate and cover as much of the front of the sump as possible (attempting to keep as much oil a possible in the rear of the pan) - only to help me in extreme braking (but how often do you do that?). As Ronnie noted - probably a very rare case when oil is NOT available for the pump pickup.

One thing is very important is for the pickup to be about 1/4" off the bottom of the pan! I've seen various combinations where the pickup was way off the bottom - this will give you pressure issues for sure.

If you have a steel early pan, you can always add your own side-to-side baffles to keep oil around the pickup - I do this with the later pans (most of which have the big rear sump and no baffle at all).

Pick your poison boys . . . skin the cat in a way that makes you happy!