The standard for small engines has always been a Honda in the last twenty years.
Sorry Kohler, you lost it. The Honda engine was finished beautifully, the parts finely made, and
the engine would run it seemed forever. I always adjusted the valves in mine, or had it done, at least once after new, and
then the Honda was like a perpetual motion machine. Always started, never misbehaved unless it was operator error.
I own a small engine from every current engine manufacturer except the Chinese. but I would buy a Lifan for a repower in a heartbeat. I have friends who are glowingly happy with them. Now where I would not put a Chinese engine is on top of my Gravely wing mowers I am renovating and building into a custom double wide rig, actually triple with the main mower.
Currently one has a Honda 340 and the other a Kawasaki single, slightly larger, with oil filter. Both primo engines for their time and both still running 25 years later. Gravely was an All American product for so many years with their Kohler singles and twins. I have the 19hp dinosaur twin. But Gravely spec'd two Japanese models over the Americans. Why? Just to be premium? Or because they really were better.
Time will tell if the Chinese clones have so perfectly copied the Honda that 25 years from now they will still be humming along. Will a standard model Briggs? Maybe a Vanguard. Maybe.......
B&S has built some really junky low priced engines so anyone who has owned one of them is a sure candidate for a far better running Chinese clone on a repower.
btw, I just drove across the entire state of NC to pick up US Made, NC Made farm implements. When I can, I do...
