Okay, down to the wire trying to make a last chance maiden voyage to spinreel this weekend. this has taken way longer than i thought but I'm really close.
Got the wiring done aside from a mount for the CR250 cdi box:

Then had to do this to the DG grab bar to clear the tail light brackets?!:mad-new:

But finally got to filling the radiator, oil and gas. then starting working on mounting the pipe. No surprise that the skid plate wouldn't work without moderate surgery so pitched that to the side. Was a little bummed that the bracket/hanger supplied didn't mount up right. Had to make a spacer and elongate the slot to get it to work eventually.

So now it looks like this:

Then at 9:00pm last night I tried to see if it would fire up. That's when I discovered 2 things:
1: This has ALOT of compression!
2: While the kickstarter clears the pipe, there is hardly any room for your foot!

So unfortunately I didn't get it started; will try again today in daylight. Curious if anyone else has any tips/tricks for this? I hate the thought of having to kickstart it with my toes (as that's all there is room for) especially if it ever kicked back?