Is it necessary to tap the oil pan for the return flange? Can't I just Drill it? Or would it leak?

 

I had mine welded. Thats something you definately don't want to leak so might as well do it right the first time.

 

i drilled mine and i haven't had any problems... i have a 96+ oil pan that has already been drilled and was run on a friend of mines setup for about 10000 with no problems.. i have pics and i am in ocean city if you are interested.

 

a friend of mine drilled his and used jb weld, worked fine.

 

We drilled Atlee's oil return, the flange is held in with lag bolts and we used JB Weld as loctite.

 

drilled a hole, used grinder to smooth down any sharp edges, and found a fuel cell bulkhead that fit perfectly into hole. large nuts lock on inside and outside of pan and between the nuts and both sides of pan are teflon washers that seal any leakage that may occur. the bulkhead screws perfectly in a 45 degree earls swivel fitting which goes to -10AN ss braided line. never had any leaks and used no welds

 

i used the flange that came with the greddy kit on my GSR...and used some hitemp RTV and its been fine.

 

this works:

just squeezed some hondabond (toyota form in place gasket maker) and bolted on.

 

Thanks for the info guys. I had bought a 96+EX oil pan that was pretapped but the gasket is different than my EX. So I was thinking about just drilling my old one. But I think I'm gonna take the gasket I got back to Honda and get a 96+ gasket and see if that works.