After rebuilding the carb on one of my 18hp's, (because of the surging) I cranked it up, and it was still surging. I was upset, to say the least. So I walked back into the shop to get a screw driver to adjust the idle, by the time I got the screw driver and was walking back to the mower, all of a sudden, the surging stopped.
Let it run for about 30 minutes. And it continued to run fine.
The next morning, I cranked it, and the surging began. And lasted for a couple of minutes and clears right up.