I think the general consensus re: shocks is that with some effort, the friction shocks can be made to work OK however the oil shocks are superior and give you adjustability with both dampening and ride height (an important tuning tool).

Some mini guys (like me) get the cars in the ball park and that's good enough, but the successful guys do tune their minis and play around with different oil weights, spring hardness, ride heights etc. Every little adjustment gives you small benefits which do add up.

Shimming generally makes the minis very twitchy...slop is fine and accepted.

Cheers,

Steve