In the 4.5 inch travel mode, the head angle becomes very steep. Going to a 5" travel fork mostly takes care of this but I am wondering if there is a link plate available that would use a longer stroke shock to give more travel with the slacker angles.

In the 4.5 inch travel mode, the head angle becomes very steep. Going to a 5" travel fork mostly takes care of this but I am wondering if there is a link plate available that would use a longer stroke shock to give more travel with the slacker angles.

Due to such low demand, Diamondback has stopped carrying the plates, they haven't had them for a while. The 2005 plates offer 5 inches of travel, they are mounted the same way, or you could get custom linkage plates CNCed for you.

Are you saying they used to have a different link available?
As far as getting one machined, it would be cool if there was a data file I could take to a machine shop.
The other thing I noticed is that possibly I could flip the existing one. There might be some slight clearance problems but thats what Dremel Moto Tools are for.

I duno if they had one for that model, but I'm pretty sure (not positive) that a long time ago they carried different links. I wouldn't dremel it, it's just a bad idea in general. Weakens the link, and the link takes quite a bit of force. I've got the o5 XSL. As for the machine shop, just trace the link you have now cept move the holes around, like moving it up would produce more travel but a steeper headtube angle (but I think that the angles are pretty slack as it is). The angles are like 68 or something for the headtube and seat tube.

Thanks, Will. The 02 geometry is quite a bit different than your 05. When I first got the frame, I built it up with a 100 mm Duke fork. I noticed the steering was kind of twitchy so I checked the head tube angle with a Dasco Pro Angle Finder Plus Level (a really nifty tool) after carefully leveling the bike. The angle was road bike steep, about 72 if I remember right. Swapping in a 130 mm marzocchi raised the front end, bringing the angle down to about 70 and the bottom bracket height to about 13.25. I would like to slacken it up a little more but keep or even slightly increase the travel. Since I want to upgrade rear shock anyway, I can just buy a shock with a longer stroke, but that means a longer eye to eye length.
This weekend I am going to try some mockups to see if there would be interference between the shock and the inverted link. It is pretty well cut ot as it is, so I think it might be OK.
Don't worry, I would not take enough metal out of the link to weaken it. The most I would do is bevel a square edge slightly.