I have a 2003 883 sportster. I bought the bike in feb. and have had nothing but trouble with it. Starts fine when it's cold but once you've rode it say half an hour and stop, it won't start. I've gone through 4 sets of plugs, rebuilt the carb, cleaned out gas tank due to the sealer coming off. And I still have the issue. At this point I don't know what to do next. My very first bike and it's already got me stressed out.

 

sounds like a bad ignition coil to me
located in the cone
when the bike is cold
use hair dryer / heat gun on low and warm it up see if it dies , if it does then youve found your issue
and welcome to the nuthouse

 

 

Agreed you should look into the ignition module.

 

Will it still die even though it hasn't actually died? Just won't start warm

 

Yeah, the module and the coil both like to go out when they warm up. The trick is to heat them up with a hair dryer as mentioned, and see if it suddenly dies. If so that is likely your culprit. I'd place it more likely on the coil than the nosecone though. If the nosecone module overheats it usually fails outright and is done for, whereas the coil tends to be intermittent when hot.

On a 2003 the coil is located above the front cylinder under the gas tank. If you're still stumped, just follow the front spark plug lead back to the black box it plugs in to. That's your coil.

 

Is the coil still going to spark when you test it? Even if it's bad. We did check that the coil had spark and it does

 

It fails when it gets hot, or warmed up good. If possible, when it dies pull a plug wire and see if you are getting spark.

 

It doesn't just die. It just doesn't restart once it's hot

 

If the ignition coil isn't it look into the bank angle sensor. A friend of mine went through similar motions recently on a 2004 883 sporty. Everyone put money on the ignition coil and it turned or the be the bank angle sensor.