A T-Bird pan has a deep rear sump. That might be what you are thinking of.
The truck pans that came with a baffle had about 1/4" clearance to the floor. The bigger that dimension, the less it can control the oil but it's also a bit of a balancing act since you want oil to flow from the front of the pan fairly easily.
There are two basic designs of pickup. One has a removable screen and the other does not. The one that is removable is positioned closer to the rear of the pan and fairly level. The one that does not is positioned a little farther forward, just above the drop to the sump and angled quite a bit up I think the rear positioned one is the better one. Neither should touch the bottom of the pan. In general, the pickup should be 1/4" to 3/8" from the bottom of the pan. When I was evaluating all of this it did not look like that is possible with either without significantly reworking the pickup because of the size of the pickups and their positioning in the pan.
You can see what I'm talking about in this thread
http://forums.y-blocksforever....My pan is a factory baffled pan. I added a gate to it. Never used it without the gate so I can't say if it changed anything noticeably.
http://forums.y-blocksforever....
Lawrenceville, GA