I have an 05 Outlaw with an s&s 111, this problem seems to only happen when cold.

When i ride and slowly throttle the bike it feels like it jerks once for a split second, as if power went off for a millisecond.

I have replaced igniter, coils, spark leads, checked battery cables, overhauled and tuned carb to no avail!

I have tried wiggling around wires and ignition but nothing.

I have also checked primary chain and belt, fuel flow is good although it feels like electrical issue.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

 

Well if it's for a millisecond, you'd probably wouldn't notice. At 2000 RPM, a cylinder is only firing every 26.5 or 33.5 milliseconds.

 

Well a split second then.

 

So you are saying that the motor quits for say somewhere between 20 to 40 engine firing cycles then restarts. Can you tell is the power goes off? Does the motor cough through the intake or do any other weird things?

Add:

Do you know what the bike uses for the main circuit breaker?

 

It's a real bitch coz it happens so fast and unpredictable, i know the bike has a 30 amp circuit breaker, i have a spare here from my other bike so might give that a go, i hear sometimes it can trip!

 

Make sure that crimp terminals going to the breaker are good. They can come loose on the wires and overheat. They dump heat into the breaker causing it to trip.

This might be the scenario.
The alternator should be connected to the ignition side of the breaker. A morning crank start drains the battery and so the alternator dumps a bunch of current back into the battery. That current heats the leads and trips the breaker. It's WAG but it seems possible.

 

You could be onto something there, i was thinking something similar, thanks for the input mate appreciate it, i'll get back to you once iv'e sussed it out.

 

If the breaker trips, it takes longer than a split second for it to cool enough to reset. I’d look elsewhere.

 

You are right... typically... I had a buddy that had a similar issue where his 2000 softail would do the same thing but it really didn't matter on temps. Turned out that the bimetallic leaf in the relay had broken loose inside. It rattled around until it made contact then sort of welded itself in place. It would get hot, bent and brake contact. Bike would quit. It took him quite a while to find it. This wasn't some numb nuts without mechanical ability. In fact the guy is an electrical engineer that built cars and bike as hobby.

With intermittent problems like this, pick one and change it. See if the problem goes away.

BTW, If you'd look elsewhere it it would be worthwhile to provide some direction or you just wasting the poor guy's time. I've had issues no one could solve but eventually stumbled on to the root cause. They can be a bitch.

 

Fair enough. I agree that the places to look would concentrate on crimp terminals and ground connections. I don’t know what type of ignition switch that bike uses, but if it’s an older style softball dash switch, I’d be highly suspicious of that.