I just stumbled across something I've had for a long time, but could never find when the discussion about shock lengths got heated up. It's a pdf that I got off the Works Performance Shocks website a long time ago that lists (among other things) the lengths of a variety of shocks from all kinds of street bikes. I was gonna offer to e-mail it to anyone who was willing to put it up on their website so we could all see it, but before I did I just popped over to the Works website to see if they ever put an updated application chart back on line. Well, those crafty buggers. How about if they didn't just steal my thunder & finally updated it after at least a couple of years of not having it on the site at all. It's a useful tool if you're cruisin' Ebay & find a shock you think might fit on your GS, but you're not sure if the length is gonna work. It doesn't tell you everything about whether the shock in question will actually fit, but it can help answer some questions. If ya wanna take a look, it's at:
http://www.worksperformance.com/newproducts.html
Click on Street Bikes & it'll open a pdf. The fourth column has shock length, center-of-eye to center-of-eye, of course. Hope this helps.
From that PDF, it looks like the GS has the second-shortest Suzi spring length, at 11.5 inches (bolt-hole-center to bolt-hole-center, unstressed). Only the Savage is shorter. FYI, here are the Suzi shocks with lengths shorter than 12":
GS500E 89- 11.50
GSX600 katana 88-90 11.88
GSF600S Bandit 97- 11.75
650 Savage 86- 10.75
GSXR750 85-87 11.50
GSX750F Katana 89-92 11.88
GSX750F Katana 93-01 11.75
GSX1100G 91-93 11.88
GSX1100G 91-83 11.50
GSF1200S Bandit 90-00 11.75
Although the Kat600 is 11.88 and the GSXR750 is 11.5, I think the conventional wisdom is that the bike will stand taller with the GSXR. So these numbers only tell half of the story.
85-87 GSXR 750 is a double eyelet shock isn't it... wont even fit unless you slice off the eyelet and make a clevise.
Cool.
Srinath.