Hi,
I am new to this forum, and new to the Connie. I just purchased a 2015 Connie in metallic black, never ridden, right off the showroom floor. Up until now, I have only owned Suzuki's. My last Suzuki being a Hayabusa. I'm now in my mid 50's, so I decided it was time for more of a sport touring bike, and this isn't too far from a Hayabusa or ZX14R with saddlebags. At this point, all my riding was just getting it home, so it is now at 120 miles.
The first thing I noticed was how much harder it is to flat foot than the Hayabusa. I'm 5'11, but my inseam must be a little short. My heals were about 1" off the ground. I looked at the lowering links offered, but I saw no information on the length change of the links. I did however see one set of links with 3 optional settings of 0", 2", and 4" drop. I zoomed up on the picture, and determined the hole spacing to be around .535", since the holes are around .480" in diameter. If .535" is around 2" drop, I figured I needed about .400" to see 1 1/2" of drop. I drew some new links up in Autocad, and put some 7075-T6 in the CNC, and made some new links to try. The pictures below are before I painted them black to prevent corrosion. Turns out that I can now flat foot the bike with no problem.
Here is what I learned about the removal of the links. I put the bike on the center stand. I used a socket to remove the nuts, then pulled the left side link off. Next you will need to remove the bottom bolt. I found it to be the hardest because it hits the bottom of the exhaust. By sliding the top bolt out a little, the link can tilt slightly. This allows you to pull the bottom bolt out until it hits the bottom of the exhaust pipe, pull down on it and then push it back in a little, which will push the bushing out the other side, just enough to allow the bottom bolt to tilt a little more and clear the exhaust pipe. The top bolt is actually not too bad. Just use a board under the rear tire to pry the rear tire up enough so that you can slide the top bolt out over the top of the exhaust pipe. I never needed to remove the exhaust. Getting the bolts out took less than 3 minutes.
Putting the new links in was way easier. The extra length made it easy to get the bottom bolt in without even getting into the exhaust pipe. I started with the top bolt, and then you just pry the tire up until the bolt went in above the exhaust pipe. Then adjust the bottom hole alignment by also raising or lowering the rear tire, and the bolt will just slide in. Then I just torqued the nuts to 44 ft. lbs., took it off the center stand, and done.
Michael