Well, had a dream I could fix my lack of working dipstick over this weekend.
Lesson there, there's never hope when working on LTX cars.
Tried my best to be safe working on gravel, snagged some scrap home depot wood for 7 bucks and made some bases.
You can see here how the lokar cable was sitting on this flat piece and the "tongue" part of the dipstick was stuck udner that lip.
In the end, I managed to properly measure how much oil is needed before it hits windage tray. Which for anyone who is concerned, is 6.25 qts, and with a full oil filter, system total is 7qt.
Downside, I could not manage to make the lokar dipstick work, would not clear past the main cap. So amazon claims to be delivering a OEM one today and maybe it will work.