Reviving a five year old thread for early royal star owners

[muaymendez1]

I was on the hunt to find how to raise the rear of the bike for better handling and more clearance in the twisties. I was lead to this post about making links.

The leveling links spoke of in this forum lower the bike and they dont work for the earl RS. Pegscraper was doing a bunch of calculations and figured out that if we were to diconnect the linkage and replace them backwards. Facing the opposite direction the bike would raise very close to an inch.

This post died in 2007 and there has been no update on how well this has worked out. I PMed pegscraper with no response so maybe someone else who has done this can chime in.

I did this to my royal star this afternoon but due to a cold I cannot ride it yet. Maybe tommorow and see what difference there is.

I only fear the strength of the links as installing them backwards allows a weaker,thinner side of the metal link to be in place of the fatter beefier side.

I wonde rif this causes any malfuntion in the future.

Edited April 27, 2011 by muaymendez1

[tazmocycle]

i've made links for my wife's 2 differant v-star 1100s and haven't had any problems with them. you can get some stock flat steel and make your own and reverse the side so you can put the beefier side back like stock. i used 1 1/4" x 1/4" flat steel to make them out of it. some of the aftermarket links thats made are adjustable and they are maDE WITH MUCH LESS SIDES THICKNESS than oem links, so i think you shouldn't have any problems with yours. to raise it up you make the link shorter than oem, the differances from stock measurament will double the amount of rise. if you make it 1/4" shorter it'll be 1/2 higher, 3/8" will be 3/4" and etc. i first made her's 1" shorter and it lo0oked like a dirt bike when i got it on there. the triangle setup does the reverse as you would nornally think.

[muaymendez1]

IM just wondering if making your owna nd messing around with the angles will affect rideability.

You say the v star has the same sort of setup.

One monoshock under the bike?

[muaymendez1]

So here are my first few thoughts on this simple mod.

I went out for a small 20 mile rid ewith the intent on scraping anywhere I could slow 90 degree turn to fast sweeping twisties.

I was more aggressive than before and when i did scrape all it scraped was the floor boards.

Pretty hard on one turn, i am thinking that with some front or forward controls I can get even more aggressive but I will leave well enough alone at this point.

I will like to update on a longer run and see what results I get then.

[tazmocycle]

yes, it the same setup. you don't have to worry about scraping because there is a little steel bar underneath the footpegs that is a wear strip. when you wear it down scraping just get some new ones and replace. have you got the air valves in the top of your front folks? these help firm up the front shocks and make it better handling. have you replaced the oil in your front schocks? it has 5w oil in it from yamaha and you can go to 10w and make the frontend a little firmer that way too. it's not hard to do either and can be done at same time.

[pegscraper]

Sorry I didn't see your PM. I haven't been real chatty of late. Yes, I still use the shock link flipped around raising the rear of the bike. (That was four years ago I did that? I don't know what's happened to the last four years, nay - five.) I'm 6'1" and can use the legroom. I never did drag the stock mufflers, but it's still too easy to put the Kromewerks turnouts on the ground, as well as floorboards, kickstand and crashbars. I have to work to not do it, but I don't really want the Kromewerks mufflers ground up. The other parts are replaceable. If you can use the legroom or are on the opposite end of the weight scale as the Japanese who designed this bike, I would still recommend flipping the link around to get some more road clearance.

 

I would like to think that Y designed that link that way to make the rear of the bike easily adjustable, and then forgot to mention it in the owner's manual. But I more tend to think it is pure accident.