Nevan,
Yes, just find a spot somewhere along the fuel line routing that will allow enough room for the filter, then cut the fuel line and install the filter.
If you have a vacuum operated fuel tap, I don't really think the filter needs to be above the carbs since the fuel supply is not relying on gravity to feed it. FWIW, you could always just use a longer fuel line so you can install the filter in an area where there's enough room.
I installed a really nice (and frickin' expensive!) cleanable K&N billet fuel filter on my ZN700 that I was originally going to install in my Toyota truck.
Nothing but problems!
The filter is designed for use in a fuel pump supplied fuel system (higher pressure/vacuum requirements I guess) and it seems the filter media (an odd shaped "fluted" plate) is much to restrictive for the low vacuum on my bike.
It would starve the bike for fuel at idle, and the bike would stall unless I either increased the idle speed adjustment or twist the throttle slightly (a PIA to keep running when stopping at red lights!)
But above idle the bike would run great.
It also seems that above idle there's enough vacuum to fill the filter body up enough with fuel that after stopping and shutting the bike off, it would then "dump" that fuel into the carbs and through the drain tube in the air filter box. Granted, the leaky petcock sure doesn't help this situation. The carb floats, needles and seats are fine and there's no debris blocking anything, so I'm still trying to figure out why it was dumping fuel into the air filter box.
Short story long, I pulled the filter media out of that K&N filter to see if it helped......it runs MUCH smoother at idle and hasn't flooded or leaked a single drop of fuel since!