Steve, I used to run my throttle rod in the hole you have it in. But I found that it made the pedal kinda stiff and touchy. That's why I wanted to go farther up, so I drilled out the hole above it, see the green arrow I added/attached to your original pic. My factory pedal setup had plenty of throw left for the slight increase in pedal travel needed.
I laugh at myself when I think this whole thing for me got started because I installed the rod upside down when I switched from one FiTech unit to a different one. I was baffled how my pedal feel was so horrible.
One thing that helped me go back to stock was ditching the HEI distributor, which gave me much more room near the throttle arm to eliminate interference. I replaced it with a small bodied 2 wire distributor, without any vacuum advance can.