o.k., so I've been following this thread from the beginning and decided to start over from scratch and do the suspension the 'fredswain' way and start with the springs first. My truck handles (turns)great, but the shocks could be dialed in much better for bumps and jumps.
I removed all the shocks and drained all the oil and checked the pistons just to make sure everything started out even. Well, somehow I had 1.5mm/6 hole pistons in the rear shocks and 1.3mm/6 hole pistons up front. I thought I had 1.3 in all 4 shocks, all this time(those little #'s on the pistons are hard to read), so that was part of some of my setup issues from the start.
So I switched the pistons out to all the same ones (1.2mm 7 hole)and started with my stiffest springs up front and started soft in the rear and worked my way up in spring rate until I had as close to spring balance as possible (my spring frequency was way out of whack to start with). Then I moved shock positions until I found perfect frequency when dropped from about 6" off the ground and when pushing down on the chassis from the balance centerpoint that I measured beforehand and marked on the chassis.
Also, before doing the spring balancing, with my 4 harbor freight digital pocket scales under each wheel I was able to get the front /rear balance to 50/50 by moving the battery and electronics around without adding any additional weight to the chassis.

tuning with oil is next, but I need some lighter oil than the 35wt I have now, as I started with 40wt(too slow rebound) and moved to 35wt which is getting close to where it needs to be. I was running 45-50 weight oils before. Hitting the track tomorrow for some testing and will post results.

Is this with the ssc slash? If so I am interested in your final results

The title of this thread should be "How To Tune Your Shocks" not "Tuning With Camber Links"

I don't use the scales to get the car to 50/50 but rather make sure it is as even as possible between left and right. If you are a bit heavier in the rear don't worry about it too much. I wouldn't want more weight in front though. If you find that 50/50 isn't working well for you, go a bit more rear biased and try again.

Since I run 2WD buggies, my cars are very rear biased and there is a lot of weight in the worst possible place which is outside of the wheelbase. In this case at the rear. I added more weight to my car down the center between the wheelbase. Yes I added a noticeable amount of weight but the amount of weight behind the rear axle is now less of the total weight than it was before which in my case made everything much better.

Once you get the shocks and springs balanced and setup how you like them, tune your cornering ability with "roll center" tuning. A rear weight biased vehicle needs more rear roll stiffness than the front. After realizing that the rear has to be stiffer in springs, this should seem obvious. A more equal the weight bias is, the more even the "roll centers" should be. In my case when I accelerated out of corners, the inside front wheel came off the ground. That's not very good for cornering power and led to huge amounts of understeer. I am running a higher roll center in the rear which is seen as greater camber gain. The front runs a lower roll center which is seen as less camber gain. It wasn't quite enough though. I needed a roll bar in the rear to help make up that last bit of rear roll stiffness. The car corners very hard now. I was going to run a much lower rear roll center but it would have required a much stiffer rear roll bar and that messes up other things. It's all a compromise.

Stick with it. Be patient. You'll get it and trust me when I say, you'll love it when you do!

"How to tune your vehicle" would be more appropriate but I didn't start the thread!

Yes, with the d8's. I am using the stiff orange vorza springs up front and had the grays out back and it worked pretty dang good before.

I went to blues in back now which are one rate softer than orange, but much firmer than the grays were to get even frequency as well as moving shock positions a little. I had to move the upper front mounts in one hole and the rear lowers out one hole.

Before,when I ran firmer springs in back, it would kick and also nose down off jumps. hopefully now that I have the same pistons front and rear, the stiffer springs will work good this time....we'll see.

just subscribing, seems interesting

Fred, working the shock frequency from total chaos to total harmony was a fun process. Having lots of springs to start with helped too. What was wierd, was watching my softer springs bounce more and faster than my stiff springs. Anyway, my left/right balance is spot on, and i agree that a little rear weight bias is o.k. (especially on 2wd)depending on how it handles and driver preference.

contrary to popular belief you want the rear pistons to have larger holes due to the different leverage points between front and rear shocks. since i have been researching pistons and such, we have now settled on 6hole front and 8 hole rear 1.1mm all the way around, this of course is with single stage pistons.

That's good to know, so I'll make sure to bring all my pistons to test with just in case. It would be funny if I ended back where I was to start with.

Are you running the pistons with more holes with slightly lighter oil in the rear too? Also, with single stage pistons is there a trick to getting a little faster rebound without sacrificing compression dampening?

www.RCshox.com coming soon! but to answer your question the last set of single stage pistons i ran was 45wt 6 hole 1.1 front and 25wt 8 hole 1.1 pistons in the back. track is soft and very bumpy. on our other track which is hard packed clay with alot of grip i just went up 5-10 in oil weight. i have tried tapered pistons and its not enough of a difference. RCshox 2stage pistons allow for maximum rebound if needed. this video is 20wt 2 stage 8 hole 1.1 compression and 10 hole 1.2mm rebound on the pink buggy( too much rebound but good for video, i was able to demolish the track record with it though!). the RB5 is 40wt 8 hole 1mm compression and 8 hole 1.2 rebound (which is too stiff as you can tell)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGop6ZpNMQ8

more comparison videos coming soon!

I'm actually wanting to try more pack in the rear rather than the front. At least on my car. My weight distribution is about 30/70 f/r which is pretty extreme. So far everything in the back has required more than the front. It has wanted more roll resistance in the rear and a stiffer effective spring rate in the rear and even the addition of a sway bar at the rear only. The front has wanted less of everything and just doesn't bottom out at all. The rear does though which tells me it wants more pack too rather than less. Currently I have the same pistons all around and since adding weight to the car am even running the same weight oil all around. I'm still playing though. I'm pretty sure that whenever the car gets 2 stage pistons, it'll want different rebound rates.

So I have been reading this thread and have tryed what you have mentioned so far. So right now my 4wd buggy is setup with stock springs f/r and 30wt oil front and 25wt rear along with stock pistons. The problem im having is the rear still feels stiff compaired to the front. the front rebounds faster when dropped than the rear.

So far what I am thinking is that I need to go down to 20wt in the rear but not sure. I am also thinking that it could be my sway bar making the rear stiffer but its setup how the manual says with the bars.

Are you sure your spring rates are balanced? When the shocks have no oil in them, you should be able to hold both ends of the car down to the ground (table, bench, etc) and let go of each end at the same time. If they are balanced each end will rise at the exact same rate. Do this with all electronics and the battery installed.

The sway bars aren't really going to affect you in this test. It does have an effect on the dampening of each side independently of the other side though which is why I ultimately went back to a higher roll center in the rear but with a lighter sway bar. If you need a swaybar, and you don't always need one, the lightest one you can get away with is going to be best. If I were you, I'd get it setup without the swaybars installed and then later on while fine tuning, add them back in if needed.

increase the hole size in the rear pistons as well as go to more holes, shouldnt have to go lower than 25wt and get it to act right.