I have an 04 Road King that has been giving me grief lately and it's also given my mechanic some frustration as well. He's been working on it about a week and we've tried a few things but the issue still remains. First some background.

It's an 04 Road King that I bought just under a year ago and it only had 2880 miles on it at the time. Very few miles for the age, so I know sitting didn't help it any. Here's a list of the engine/mechanical work done at the time of purchase new by the original owner:

29775-02A 1550 ST2 EFI Kit
29604-00 Dynojet Kit
DS-288881 Stage 2 Air Filter 93-03 CV
10014 Clamp
10038A Hose Clamp
21919-99 Piston Ring Set 1550 + .005 O/S
5495025 Full Sys 2-1 Fat Cat
5495026 Slipon Ghost Pipe
8983 Roller Bearing Assy
8990A Ball Bearing
17048-98 Gasket Kit, Exhaust
29165-89 Air Cleaner Cover

Then there was labor charges including:

Big Bore and Cams 12 hours
RE Jet Carb .5 hour
T-Header 2 hours


Now, since I've had it, it has been pretty good. Over the course of last summer and fall, I only had the occasional issue starting it up but nothing that gave me any concern. However, ever since the winter months it's seemed to have been getting consistently worse starting up. I'll pull the choke all the way out, give it a couple throttle turns and hit the ignition button. It will just grind away but not kick off. I'll let off and try again and it just grinds. I'll twist the throttle just a bit and sometimes it kicks on. Sometimes I have to sit and wait a minute or so and try again and it fires right up. Other times it fires up without trouble. Once it gets going it runs fine. But even once it's warmed up, if I stop somewhere and then go to fire it up, sometimes it will still give me trouble. Sometimes not. But it seems that as time goes on, it's more often that it gives me trouble.

So I had a local technician take a look at it and he went through all the usual checks. Spark plugs are fine, fuel seems ok and so forth. He suggested trying a Dynojet Thunderslide kit, but that didn't solve the problem. He also adjusted the pin, stating the the bike was setup to idle too high. This resulted in the bike feeling like it was struggling for power while idle. I'd sit at a stop light and it felt like it would vibrate much, much more than it did before at idle. It felt sluggish as if it was going to stall, but it doesn't. something just wasn't right still.

At this point, it was suggested that rather than it being a fuel issue, it could be electrical and the crank position sensor was replaced. Still no luck.

These things have improved the overall feel of the bike as it rides down the road. I notice a more smooth shifting transition and the bike feels great once I get it going and am riding down the street. However when I come to a stop, the teeth chattering vibrations kick in, the sluggish idle kicks in and just a little throttle or once I get going clears it right up and it seems to run fine.

That is until I stop or turn it off and go to fire it back up and it doesn't want to start without doing a list of things to get it to turn over.

The tech said he wanted to sleep on it for a few days and get a fresh train of thought. It's one of those things that's requiring some trial and error. The tech seems like a very informed, straight up person who really wants to get to the bottom of this. But at this point, baring spending hours and hours in labor, he is taking some time to think through it.

In the meantime I thought I'd check in here and see if anyone has ever been baffled by a similar situation and how they might have solved it.

Thanks.