[neallewis]

Biggest thing I'd change is to run saddles, the car is better on the slippy with a it more weight in. If you just have shorty, then you could try it across the chassis, towards the rear, and a bit of extra weight. I run the alloy bulkhead with extra brass weight, this is advised. The heavier yokomo steel or 3rd part bras bulkheads are best on high traction.
I found the AE springs are too light, but the AE blue front spring works ok, and the AE yellow rear. I currently run the yatabe arena springs, yellow front and black rear. 37.50/32.50 oils. Too light on the oil (and spring) and you get collapsing you have seen, but the car runs better with a lighter front spring and a heavy rear spring. Kit rear springs work well to be fair, better than most AE in my testing.
If you are on lowest inner ball link on rear inner, try adding washers to the raise the outer (hub) ball link.
And I prefer the ball diff in lower traction.
In low traction i tend to run minispikes all round, on a wide (uncut) front wheel