Yesterday I decided to take my bike for a longer than normal ride, it's an 03 883 hugger with the 1200 conversion. I made it about 90 miles with a river and gas stop, when it backfired like a .45 during startup. It kept running fine so we started the 65mile trip home. I only made it 15miles before she started sputtering and backfiring, to ultimately die and refuse to start. After 20minutes of tinkering, I gave up so I could go get proper tools and another hand. Rode dumb n dumber style on my buddies Vstar for 50 miles

Came back about 2 hours later, started just fine and ran for another 15 miles before crapping out again. Checked my intake and carb, everything looked good. Left it overnight and rode it another 20miles this morning before it crapped out again. Did the last leg of the trip in the bed of my truck.

My thought is the ignition module, is there anything else that a newbie could look into before buying the new part?

 

I bet it is your ingiton sensor assemblie is bad. Take the cover with two rivets off on the cam cover will probley have what looks like melted goo in there.

 

Ignition coil going "open" is a good one to check into as well