External Effects Routing Help, or "Help me out of this BOX!"

Greetings!
 
I was wondering if there is a kind soul who could gimme a little nudge.  Using Sonar Pro 7, and a Focusrite Saffire Pro 26 i/o.
 
I have read all the related stuff I can find on using external boxes with my setup. I do believe I have the actual "ext eff insert" thing pretty much figgered out. I did bounce to track with one, and it worked.  HOWEVER.  I have gotten myself into some kind of "phase Hell", or some type of feedback loop that's driving me bonkers.
 
An earlier post said that if I'm wanting to run a stereo mix through something like, say, my Meek twinq to see if that warms stuff up a bit, I do NOT use the ext eff insert function in Sonar. Cool.  So, what IS the best way to route something like that? Do I just set up my master buss to go outta the saffire and back in to an open stereo channel?  What if my mix isn't fully automated and I need to tweak things and have to listen as I record it?
 
I know I'm close, and I suspect what I have is more of a monitoring limitation perhaps, complicated by the fact that the Saffire Users manual is only helpful if I need something to help start my charcoal barbecue.  I am eventually going to attack my mysterious patchbay and get out of the box a lot more, but I first need to better grasp the Sonar/Saffire routing issues. 
 
Thanks for taking the time to help. Im having a blast with this, and I know "I'll get by with a little help from my friends".
 
q

Still no luck.  So... let me get this straight. On my sonar mixer. Create a new bus. Take my Master  and set it to go to Bus 2.  Route bus 2 to say my Saffire 3/4 out.  Then make an audio track in Sonar, say track 2, and record with Input "saffire 5/6", which is coming out of saffire 3/4 out.  Sounds fine while I record. When I go to playback I hear that phase/feedback problem. Ive tried all my sliders on my saffire UI, and still get it. I can't tell if Im RECORDING that phasey crap, or if Im only monitoring it. SO freaking frustrating. Should just not be this damned difficult. Im an old guy, and I swear I miss consoles and tape so much!  Anyway, any ideas would be so helpful.  Yes I will hook up my old yamaha mixer for some familiarity to avoid all of this invisible routing. However, any help is appreciated.

Thanks!

SONAR 7 had an issue with incorrectly calculating delay compensation for external inserts, which didn't get resolved until version 8. Maybe that's what's causing the "phasing". It might be necessary to insert a delay or phase-correction plugin.

OK, I see. Yeh, that should be simple. Although it wouldn't be the first time something presumably simple resulted in some engineer's premature hair loss.

Is it really necessary to record the externally looped audio? If I understand you correctly, it sounds like what you really want to do is to use an external device as an insert effect on the master bus. Couldn't you do that just like any other external insert? Then, if you want to record it, simply bounce the Full Mix to a new audio track.

I'm thinking you should try mixing the song to stereo, then insert the outboard on just that track like you did when tracking.