Review on 🔧 Lisle 15000 Cylinder Engine Hone by Travis Chavis

For reference, I graduated from college as a professional motorcyclist and marine mechanic and have been doing small engine repairs and performance work for decades. So I know what I'm talking about. I own and regularly use thousands of dollars of hand and power tools. I bought a Lisle 15000 hard honing tool because I heard it could turn a cylinder to the next size, saving me the expense of going to a machine shop. So, is it really possible? In my experience, not for most engines. There were two issues: the Hones' build quality and crankcase obstructions. First, quality issues. The honing machine works via a universal joint between the cutting head and the drive rod. In principle this is normal. The best Sunnen do the same. Unfortunately, the four pivot points on this honing machine are made with standard roller pins that are pressed in/driven in and then machined flush. Two out of four needles fell out of my sharpener within minutes of the first use. I stretched them out to fit snugly and pushed them back in, but that was a harbinger of disappointment to come. cannot remove material or that this grinder does not correct the runout. It will certainly do both well. But removing the taper and creating a straight hole with a precise fit is well beyond the capabilities of this tool with most small displacement automotive blocks. And I'll tell you why To be fair you could very well get a snug fit and straight bore in the cylinders that can be unbolted from the block, removing obstructions on either end of the cylinder. But on small displacement car engines (I've worked with Suzuki's 2.0 liter engine, J20A block) there are obstructions just under the bottom of the cylinder wall. So you CANNOT push the honing much deeper than flush with the bottom of the cylinder walls. So grinding the correct crosshatch means pulling the hon out of the top of the cylinder but pulling back just behind the bottom. Result: The top of the cylinder is ground all the time and the bottom no more than half the time. Thus, a cone is ground in the cylinder. Now you can play around with the sanding of the stones, but you'll still be sanding more at the top and center than at the bottom. This will wear the stones unevenly and require you to resharpen the stones every few strokes. The less pressure you put on the walls of the cylinder, the closer you get to the top. Result: BAD, BAD, BAD! Proper piston seating requires honing of the cylinder walls to a tolerance of tens of thousands of an inch. It is impossible to achieve such precision by adjusting the cutting tool with a piece of ultra-coarse sandpaper taped to a stick. What I received was a polished work that looked absolutely perfect to the naked eye, but was measured with an accurate jig. it showed an overall taper with "waves" of inaccuracies at different depths of the cylinder. It's just not possible to do it properly with such a crude instrument. I ended up having to take the block to the machine shop after spending over $200 on this tool, extra stones and a heavy-duty, low-rpm drill bit. the ability to start honing without overheating. Talk about disappointment! My advice? If you're working with a detachable cylinder, you can easily get this tool to work. You can use long strokes and frequent measurements with a bore gauge and adjust the dwell time of your honing template to get a more or less straight and accurate bore. It can even work with larger engines that have more space under the cylinders. And it would certainly be easier for engines that can tolerate large gaps between the piston and cylinder wall. But if you are working with a block that has obstructions near the bottom of the cylinders, you will never cut the cylinder to be straight and accurate enough. for an exact fit to your pistons. Seriously, the machine shop fees WILL be cheaper than trying to do the impossible with a cheap grinder and then eventually paying the machine shop to do it. So this project cost about $250 in low quality tools that will mostly be sitting in my tool box until I do my next swap motor overhaul. This is not a very good deal. And for that reason I cannot recommend this product.