Hey all, I'm working my way through turning my '06 GS500F into a modern-ish cafe racer. I've already switched over to Katana wheels, partially chopped the subframe, designed and built a set of Vortex-based rearsets (inc. converting to GPshift), and I've got an R6 shock, Woodcraft clipons and a few other goodies to be delivered this week, and since I'm swapping shocks anyway, I might as well do some raising links for the rear to get the rear end of the bike up a bit more. If anyone happens to have a set of 1" raising links and a caliper, could you measure the center-center distance between the mounting holes, or at least point me in the right direction with regards to how much shorter than stock the links would need to be to get a given amount of ride height increase? I do have access to a waterjet through my employer, and I am a CAD designer for a seal/gasket/other-2D-stuff company by trade, so being able to produce these (or other parts that are strictly 2D) neatly will be cake, I just would enjoy having a starting point

A few years ago I had 1" raising links on my GS paired with the R6 shock. The combination would not work without grinding a significant amount of metal off the swingarm to allow clearance for the shock.

I regretted doing it and have since changed my setup but I do believe I still have the links. When I get home from work later I can dig them out and measure them for you if nobody else beats me to it.

If you scroll almost all the way down to the bottom of this page of my project thread, you'll see a pic of the links next to stock links. I thought I had it documented how much shorter they were but I'm having trouble finding it now.
http://gstwins.com/gsboard/index.php?topic=70880.380

I am home from work and I measured the 1" raising links I have.
The mounting holes, center to center, measure:
17.5 cm
or
6 and 7/8"
I really hope that helps!

Many thanks! I may hold off on making raising links until I have a chance to actually ride the bike, based on your experience with getting an R6 shock to fit with them (I'd rather not have this bike turn into one of those projects that stays on stands until the end of days because of "while I'm in there" syndrome, and having to do more-than-insignificant swingarm mods would turn it into just that for me I fear )

You're very welcome! I totally understand what you mean. Even though I didn't keep it set up that way, I'm glad I did the install and got the experience out of it... and I'm also glad my findings can help others from time to time.