Hello everyone!

A few days ago, on my ride home from work, my clutch cable snapped up near the handle bar. I ordered another cable and installed it. With the bike turned off, I am now able to change gears. However, if the bike is turned on, and I properly shift from neutral to 1st, the engine cuts off as if the clutch was not engaged. So after a long time of trying to understand what was happening, I realized that there was a little bit of slack in the new cable near the handle bars (i.e. the tension in the cable is not enough to spring the lever all the way back when I let it go). The slack is very minimal though. If I had to estimate, I would 1/4 of an inch.

I plan to take the cable out and shorten it tomorrow so that there is more tension. My big question is will that fix my problem, or does anyone think that something could have been damaged in the engine/transmission? I don't live anywhere near a Lifan dealer, so I am stuck trying to fix this one on my own. Any help is appreciated!

*edit* I have the Lifan 200iii if that helps.