Hi I'm about to replace my oil pan gasket and was wandering if an Oil Pan Baffle plate really necessary if I don't autocross or drift the car?

 

It is not.

 

Nope. I do track and autocross the car, and have for 18 years - the lack hasn't done any harm yet, the engine is still original. Knock on wood.

 

OP - No need for an oil pan baffle on a street/auto-X car. If you do serious track time with it, and do courses that have long duration high-G turns, it would be worth it for the extra insurance. A couple of other things to consider before deciding to get a pan baffle:

1. You now have an extra pan sealing surface now that can potentially leak, which pretty much mandates that you'll also need to buy an oil pan stiffener kit to help stiffen up the structure which helps prevent those leaks.
2. The oil pan stiffener kits typically include studs & nuts to deal with the extra thickness of the OP stiffener kit & and a pan baffle. BUT you'll find that along the front of engine, it's a very tight fit above the FC cross member with the studs, and getting the pan on/off the engine with the engine installed in the car is a major PITA. So what you'll want to do is replace the some of those studs that came with the stiffener kit with longer bolts for the front of the engine.

 

I had a oil baffle plate installed on my S5 N/A rebuild. I can honestly say I didn't notice a difference in performance. It's just there just in case.

 

totally necessary, which is why all RX7's came with a baffle plate.

sarcasm, because even on the track you don't need a baffle unless your car guzzles oil and you can't be bothered to check the level before a race. you quite literally wouldn't be able to move enough oil from the pickup tube unless you had at least 1 quart low to start with since the engine will have about 1.5 quarts in the engine itself while running which means you should have 3.5 quarts in the pan, when your oil level drops you can see how that can lead to issues rather quickly.