Digital BW, The Print

I am trying to print an image that is sized to 40cm x 60 cm (23.619 inches x 15.747 inches) on an epson 3880. Since the image is longer than the preset paper sizes (max 17x22), I am cutting off a paper roll and trying to use Custom Size Management.

Anyone have success printing longer than 22 inches on the 3800/3880 ?
I am getting the weirdest results with incorrect orientation and only segments of the image printing . If you google 'custom sizes 3800 mac' you see that I am not the only one, but there isn't a clear solution.It seems that PS & the page setup aren't talking to each other nicely.
Preset sizes work OK.

Using Mac OSX 10.5.8 & CS4. I enter the correct width x height in the File>Page setup. It gives itself a name like 'untitled' which I can re-name. But in the PS>Print window it shows the orientation reversed. If I switch the width x height numbers in page setup (width as height etc) it shows it correctly in the PS>Print preview. Either way it doesn't print correctly, and not only is there incorrect orientation but it very weirdly only prints a segment of the image(like a 5.5 inch).

I read about and changed the unit measurement in my OS>System prefs> Intn'l formats> to be US which is how the PS pref is set (both in inches).
I have tried rotating the image.
Scaled is un-checked, centered is checked.
I'm using auto feeder (no roll paper support on this printer).
I've tried setting all the margins to 0 and also to 0.13 in and also to .25
I have not set anything on the printer's lcd menu.

Anyone have ideas of what may be the problem & solution?
Other than using a RIP.

Thanks
(please email)