I have the custom config, but whenever I upload it to ftp and restart my server, it converts back to the default config.  this has been really frustrationg.  Is there something obvious I have been overlooking?  Thanks!

That would imply that your config file was not edited properly, likely being invalid JSON. I'd suggest using a site such as http://www.jsonlint.com to check it before uploading it.

I ran it through, and it said I had a couple commas out of place.  I removed them and now it works fine.  Thanks for the help!