It looks like he flipped the spring pads around, you can see it in the second photo. You will want to use a stock length shock on the front end. I ran mine this way to keep the shock up and out of the way of rocks, I later switched to a taller shock tower when I had to move the shock tower with the RUF conversion.
To get the springs to level out I added another second leaf to the spring pack, you can get them from Hawk Suzuki for pretty cheap if you don't have a spare set of springs laying around. That brought the pack back to level. After a year or so I re-ached them in the garage.