By posting the conversion kit, yes sir, I consider you part of the clown show. Also by false advertising your kit as "genuine Kawasaki heavy duty air filter conversion kit". The kit parts might be genuine, the part numbers might genuine, but there is no such kit from Kawasaki.
Actually the conversion kit is genuine made by Kawasaki and sold through my wholesaler RGS which is why I posted the link to their catelogue page.
RGS is Kawasaki's major distributor in Australia and they are genuine factory parts which is coded into the part numbers starting the KAW so techs like me can choose between genuine Kawasaki parts and their generic after market part which for an air filter would be AIR????
I posted a link to that page several years ago because people were confused by a pile of contradictory BS they saw all over the place posted by people who have no idea about what they are posting .
Star also kept a copy of the text from the page for his information it is 100 % genuine and 100% legal in any country other than the USA where it may or may not contravine the USA EPA Laws
It is backed by Kawasaki and covered by Kawasaki and is both covered by warranty which does not affect the engine warranty in Australia . Politically / leagally it may be different in the USA but mechanically the conversion is 100% sound, good propper and well worth the effort of doing .
There is only one reason why there is a FS,FR & FX version of the same engine and that is TICKET PRICE pure & simple .
Kawasaki would be more than happy to only make the FX version as the extra volume would probably drop the cost around 20% but the mower manufacturers want some thing to make the commercial version look different to the residential version in order to justify the higher ticket price of the commercial mower .
Ariens madea mess of the reintroduced Ariens/Gravely range as there is no obvious difference between the cheaper residential Orange Ariens & the exact same grey painted Gravely with a 20% higher ticket price.
To suggest hat there would be any differenece to the exhaust emissions between the 3 engines shows a gross lack of understanding of engine dynamics and combustion technology .
And to nit pick the Donaldson air filter has 3 times the surface area of the standard filter, it take a lot longer to become clogged which causes the engine to run rich & blow particulates out of the exhaust so in the long term is CLEANER that the filter used in the FS & FR .
Plus it filters finner than both of the others and seals better so ther is less dust in the air thus less wear on the rings & bore so it will remain EPA compliant for a lot longer
These are not NASCAR top fuelers they are mower engines running under 4000 rpm and governed .
When the USA used to manufacture rather than import and assemble there were cheaper ways to differentiate betwen the bottom line & top line of the same mower .
For residentials the cheap version got a Tecumseh the middle version got a Briggs & the top line got a Kohler and each one got an extra $ 500 added for the "better" engine .
commrcials came with a Briggs a the cheap option then Kohler then Honda .
This ended when Honda ceased supplying mower engines because they would not cheapen their engines to the price level that the mower companies would pay for.
Now days there is no maker of throw away engines so the mower factories have to go down a different path.
Kohler tried to do two versions of the same engine with the original Courage & Command engines but very quickly the number of different parts just became too much & the economy of scale was lost so they ended up only the raw casting being the same .