Alright, I cranked the governor up to 3400rpms and set out mowing yesterday.
I think I made a mistake, though, in not letting it get warm enough as by the time I finished it was wanting to run at 3700-3800, and would even bounce a bit around 4K when settling down after going through a thick patch(I dropped my cut height a bit also so was working it a bit harder). I actually ended up manually throttling it back to hold it around 3300-3400, and just preemptively cranking it up a bit when I knew I'd be straining it. So, looks like I'm going to be setting the governor back a little more.
I'm also tempted to try the #40 jet.
Right now I'm cutting the next door neighbor's yard also, which is smaller than ours, but I'm guessing I'm doing about 3/4 of an acre total. My last few times, I had gas left over in the tank(on the mower) after doing both-in fact enough that I was able to do about half the neighbor's(a smaller lot) before running dry. This time, I checked when I was close to finished and I could see the bottom of the tank, so added a bit more(Ideally I'd store empty if I could, but I compromise by flipping the shut-off valve when I'm close to finished and then run it until it dies so I have a mostly empty carb). Of course, the extra half inch of cut over normal will suck through a lot more gas, but I also had the bigger jet and faster governed speed this time. If I can save a bit of gas with a smaller jet without sacrificing performance, I'd do it.
It's not a HUGE deal since, at least as of now, I can make it through a full mow without refueling, which is good, and I seem to have it close to perfect to be able to use exactly one tank in a session and store empty. Still, though, that 2 gallon jug is ~$15 between gasoline and an 8 ounce bottle of oil, so I don't want to intentionally waste. Funny, I had another neighbor bending my ear not too long ago about how "wonderful" Tru-Fuel is and how it's "not that expensive". If my weedeater and blower were my only two stroke stuff, and I could get by on 1-2 quarts a year at $6 each, I'd not worry about it. It's $23/gallon from what I've seen, which is probably about 2 weeks of mowing for me. That shifts things a bit, plus I'm turning gas over fast enough for the mower that I'm not too worried about a 2 gallon can of E10 sitting around for ~4-6 weeks or so(especially considering that, for all their ills, the newfangled gas cans do actually seal really well).
I know I'm rambling a bit, and I know that there's a lot of 2 cycle oil discussion around here. For now, I'm sticking with the genuine Lawn-Boy brand oil, which either Toro still sells or at least there's still a bunch in the pipeline, as I've not had any troubled getting it(just bought 3 more 8 oz. bottles on Amazon for $4.50 each). I'm mixing at 32:1 as the mower says. I know most modern oils can be run at 40:1 or 50:1 without issue, but I figure no one ever did wrong by using the manufacturer-recommended oil at their mix ratio. My weedeater and blower are getting Supertech mixed at 50:1...which I know is probably fine in the mower too(and if I were running low and needed to finish for the day, or whatever other situation, I'd have no problem either cutting my 32:1 with some 50:1 or even running it 50:1 for a short session) but I want to keep the mower going as long as I can. Gas is down to ~$4.70 around here, so I think I'm going to be buying gas for everything tomorrow.