Evil Shift Cables!!!
Guess I was hoping someone would say, "So-in-so makes a more flexible cable." or something to that effect. But as someone replied, "You spend all this money, you expect things to work like they say....." Just don't have faith in something you had to jerry rigged together. Plus it looks like ***. Friend suggested using bicycle cables! Told him to get off my driveway. haha.
Gonna give bending the bracket out a bit and see how that works.