I have about 180 miles on my '06 GS500F.  I have noticed that when I grab the throttle there is about a half second of hesitation before I get acceleration.  Kind of a "clunking" feeling.  Just for fun I put the bike up on the centerstand and pulled up on the bottom of the chain.  Whoa,  that seems pretty loose. 

I look in my Haynes manual.  Specifications say 20mm - 30mm of free play.  I do the conversion (.79" - 1.18") and that puts 1 inch right about in the sweet spot.  I go down and measure the chain freeplay.  Yikes!  2 inches of freeplay! 

So should I tighten the chain (I'm guessing yes).  If so is the '89 to '97 Haynes manual valid for my bike for this operation?

Also, is this normal?  I'm not sure how much freeplay is "really bad" freeplay.  Am I within normal adjustment limits or is this alarmingly out of whack?

Are you doing it w/ the bike on the side stand?

The Haynes Manual says:

"To check the chain, shift the transmission into neutral and make sure the ignition switch is OFF. Place the machine on its center stand"

For adjustment it says:

"Rotate the rear wheel until the chain is positioned with the tightest point at the center of its bottom run, then place the machine on its sidestand"

So right now I am checking the freeplay with the bike on its center stand.

Guess what? Haynes is wrong.

Chain slack should be checked on the sidestand. The reading on the centerstand with the swingarm all the way down will be much looser.

Also, the "power-engagement-clunk" is a Buddha Loves You on the GS. It mostly comes from free play in the gearbox, though. You'll get the hang of it soon enough. It's most annoying in 1st where negine braking is quite effective.

The OEM suzuki GS manual says: "Support the motorcycle by center stand,and turn the rear wheel slowly by hand
with the transmission shifted to neutral." and then:"Place on side stand for accurate adjustment"
So pretty much same as Haynes

Do whatever you like. Fact is: If you adjust the chain to 20mm slack checked on the centerstand, the chain will go taut when the rear suspension is compressed.

The ceterstand thing is only to find the loosest position of the chain.

A chain shouldnt loosen off that much in just 180 miles. It should be taken back to the dealer. Its occurs to me that when they have built it up from the crate they havent tensioned the chain correctly or the tensioners/axlebolt havent been torqued up correctly. Take it back to them and ask why its loose.

Put it on the centerstand and look for the tight spot.
Might not be much of one on a new bike.
Drop the bike and put on sidestand.
Check the slack at that point.
On some bikes there is not much difference between center and sidestand but
the sidestand is the way to do it.
As your chain and sprockets get older you really have to pay attention
to that tight spot.  You will be surprised on how much difference there will be
between the tigh and loose spots.

What MarkusN is saying and what Haynes (and Suzuki) is saying are not necessarily in conflict.  Haynes says to measure the slack and rotate the chain to the tightest spot while on the center stand.   Then it says to do all of the adjustment on the side stand.  It says nothing about adjusting it on the side stand and then putting back up on the center stand to measure.

So sounds like as long as you do the whole adjust...measure...adjust...measure thing on the side stand you won't run the risk of overtightening.

Precisely. It's just that the centerstand procedure is too often misinterpreted.

I think you ment to say tightest spot and not loosest.

Ahh yes, sorry.  Tightest spot at the bottom.  Thanks for the catch.

I've always adjusted my drive chains on the center stands, never had a problem with doing it that way.  That's about 300,000 miles of chain wear with the last 120,000 miles of it on a couple GS500's.   

I gather you don't adjust them very tight, then? Because at 20 mm on the centerstand I definitely got grinding noises from my front sprocket when loaded.