Wow! Very good and fast replies, i am not used to that from the first board i pick in any topic - usually my question (about anything) won't get any responses and i'll have to trial & error several boards before i find one i can learn from! Thank you, everyone!!! I must say that it was my understanding that the throttle-less wave came about by the psychos in California government going overboard as usual (which is behind my motivation as much as anything to circumvent) but given what you folks have said, the fact that both configurations were once available and that the governor "auto-throttles" itself, perhaps i just need to tone down my coffee consumption.
And of course there is something else... The "spark that lit the fuse" was my first and only time that i have used this mower so far, bought from a nice man who gets poorly working mowers and fixes them up. Well, he should have gone beyond making the engine run in this case and instead cut a lawn. After a while the governor seemed to have a mind of it's own, sometimes running fine and other times sporadically chugging along with that puff of black smoke. Then was the engine shut-down along with killing the fuel. 20 minutes later i came back to a hard start, open the air intake cover and am greeted by a pool of gas.
Normally i would go direct to a rebuild, but in that i didn't know how to verify that the carb on it being OEM or a cheaply made "Will fit your GCV160..." i chose to order that which is supposed to be an OEM. Only problem with that is i ordered it off of Amazon, so it still could be some cheap knock off with OEM indicia. It gets here on Wednesday, will have to see-
Anyway, once again, thank you everyone, it looks to me i found the experts i had hoped for.
-Bruce