The starter motor does not struggle to spin the engine.
The battery is dated 2/2020 and it's a Harley battery.
I agree it shouldn't make a difference waiting or not waiting to hit the starter button, but it actually does. And it starts with no backfire, or coughing from the throttle body, or grinding of the starter clutch. In fact it starts on the first revolution of the motor, almost instantly.

As an update I rebuilt the fuel system inside the tank, including the pressure reg, pump, filters, hoses, and quick disconnect fuel line. It was all in need of service so I don't mind that I did the work for nothing. But it didn't resolve the problem.

At this point the battery seems to be the next area of attention. I might swap it into my 13 and see what result I get with that.

 

If the starter doesn't struggle to spin the engine, why would you think the battery could be the problem?

If you hit the starter immediately after turning the kill switch on, you aren't giving the fuel system a chance to prime, which makes me wonder if maybe it's flooding the engine while it sits due to leaking injectors, or something.

 

I just watched a video from "Doc" Harley and HD starters. Pull the starter solenoid plunger and look if the copper rings on the plunger and inside the solenoid. If the copper rings look pitted and burned, replace those pieces, and replace the ground cable and positive cable to the starter positive post. Takes more battery power to cut through the burned and pitted copper.

 

The OP has stated that the starter motor does not struggle to crank the engine, there is no reason to disassemble the starter.

 

I finally identified the source of my problem to be the coil.
This seems odd because the bike otherwise ran perfect once running, without and hint of backfire or other issue.
The coil tested fine with a multimeter and even matched the readings of the new coil.
So it seems something was going on once the coil was energized for some period of time.

After being ripped off by an Ebay seller selling knock off OEM harley coils as OEM, I finally got this real Twin Power coil from J&P and my bike is back to perfect starting and running condition

https://www.jpcycles.com/product/901...torcycle=False

Hope this helps somebody in the future.

 

Thanks for posting this update ^^

 

Just bought my '01 FXDWG, and new to Harley. Yesterday I noticed the same issue. Cold starts great, Warm starts not so great. Timely post. Or maybe I just don't have the 'feel' for my bike yet. But helpful to know what worked for you so thanks!

Gary