You seem to be focused on the length of the rod but, as you've stated, the trans lever is full back at WOT so the point is moot.
What you should be focused on is the "Start in 1 and floor it slap stick moves to 2nd by itself prematurely.".
Checked mounts they are good. Today I reinstalled the rod after I tweaked it so it was the same length as a stock one. I was playing with the shifter handle and noticed that sometimes I couldn't get it to fully go into 1. So I drove it. When I would put it down in 1 once I got it to fully go I noticed the accelerator pedal was almost impossible to press. I brought it back and took a look under the hood and the shift linkage and kickdown rod linkage are interfering with each other. So this must be why when you floor it in 1 it automatically moves to 2 because the kickdown rod is pushing the shift selector to the next gear. How can I fix this?
