Brandwood shifter woes and impressions 😕 - UPDATED

[Power Surge]

So I like to think I'm a pretty intelligent guy. I've owned over a hundred vehicles and have been building custom cars for 30 plus years. But this cable shift seems to be kicking my ***.

I set the cables up as per the instructions. Set the four and aft adjustment on the main cable. Then put the transmission into reverse and set the gate cable. When I went to set the gate cable the rod end was about an inch off from the hole in the bracket so I had to do some adjustments on the cable sleeve to line that up which I thought was a bit odd.

The issue that I seem to be having is that the main cable seems to be working fine but the gate cable will not get me into reverse or fifth gear. Now I do understand how it all works so I'm a little perplexed. I cannot get the shifter to move over to the left enough to rotate the cable rod on the transmission into the reverse detent. If I disconnect the rod end from the transmission, I can get the transmission to go into reverse no problem, and I can get the shifter to go into the reverse position no problem, and everything perfectly lines up at the transmission between the rod end and the shifter coupling. But when they are actually attached the shifter will not rotate the shaft on the transmission enough to get into reverse. Same thing with fifth gear. I've tried various adjustments and no matter what I do I still can't get the shifter to get into reverse, or 5th gear for that matter.

Do these cars need to be running for proper engagement? I would think not but I also have no prior experience with this Porsche transmission. Everything seems to be lined up properly but yet the shifter won't actually move the transmission coupler where it's supposed to and I feel like would have to force the shifter really hard to get it to engage if it was going to engage.

I'm also not been overly impressed with this setup thus far. The bracket on the transmission seems very flimsy and easily flexed. Also the part of the bracket that the main cable goes into is completely at the wrong angle. It makes the cable Point downward coming out of the threaded end, however the cable goes vastly upwards as it exits the threaded end as it's attachment point on the transmission is higher than the mount on the bracket. I haven't seen enough pictures of this bracket installed on a transmission to see if maybe it's not made correctly.

Any help would be appreciated as I don't want to break the shifter or the transmission trying to get this set up correctly.