Importing a DEM to a Terrain model; is there a way to change the geographical coordinate system in the file options?

Maybe I am just doing something wrong so feel free to call me out on that too. Here is the problem as it seems to occur, In PA we have some LIDAR data stored as DEMs it tends to be cleaner than the LAS data that is also provided. It actually is in PA state plane (north or south) and US survey feet. For some reason when ORD reads it, ORD thinks it is in meters but with units of survey feet. When you bring it in ORD trys to be clever and runs a conversion to make it survey feet which actually messes up the location. Again it actually is in US Survey feet. This used to happen in the old inroads too. when You did any imports you just forced the import coordinates and the file coordinates to be the same, that way no conversion happened and no error. Here is where the problem lies with DEMs and ORD. I can't seem to figure out how to change the coordinate system in the file options when importing the DEM. It is greyed out with no option to change it. I am guessing it pulls it from the DEM somehow. Is there a way to unlock the option to change what coordinate system for the file being imported is? Either that or a way to copy the coordinate definition from a dem (tif format) and create a custom coordinate definition so that the selected coordinate system can be the same? just need to stop the conversion. Thanks to any one who has any ideas!