[Boxersix]

On non-dry sump motors, a sandwich plate is used. Thermostat is nice, but most of the time I run a non-thermostatic housing as I prefer 100% cooler flow. Oil can be "too cold" but you just have to pay attention to the climate and adjust things accordingly. If running a heavy weight oil, give it a few minutes to warm up, it's doesn't take long at all. Summer months in my car I'm running 15w-40, very hot months or track days I run 20w-50. Both non-synthetic(Rotella brand to be specific). During the winter months I drop to 5w-30 and cap the cooler duct 50%.

On DS cars I run the coolers inline between the pressure section and the motor(clean oil)

There's no way to tap the OE pumps without pressure loss(oil would flow directly from pressure to scavenge side of pump rotors), or without such extensive pump/timing cover modifications that you're pulling a stretch and might as well bite the bullet to go DS. in reality you need to run `10AN sized fittings, and there not lot of room behind the covers to

Shimming the pump is a bandaid. You can shim the pump till you turn blue but you're still working with stock gerotor flow. You have to increase the pump's displacement per rev to make a difference. Thicker gerotors do that(I have yet to tear apart an EG33 pump for specs, it's sitting on my bench to do so right now. Maybe i'll do that today.

-Adam