Lisle 15000 Engine Cylinder Hone

This rigid hone trued-up +/- 1.5 thousandths out of round and tapered cylinders with little effort for new piston ring installation. Very satisfied with performance. The included 80 grit stone eats through material fast and the micrometer adjustment (with included 120 grit stone) allows you to get really close to final finish. Finished-up with a ball hone for a really nice bore. The stone racks where in backwards so study the included directions. Simple to place racks in correct position.

Used one before. Works professionally.

Received the hone fast and in good shape except it wasn't shipped with the correct stone set. Called Lisle customer service and they sent the correct stones promptly free of charge. Very happy with Lisle products and customer service. Thank you.

My first order arrived with both stone sets broken. Everything comes in a plastic case with no padding or separation at all. The hone collides with everything in the plastic case and with the first order, in my case broke both sets of stones. The replacement order I thought came in with no damage but when I went to use the finer stone set I discovered one of the stones was in fact broken. I will say, I really like the hone! It performs very well and comes with easy to understand instructions. The Lisle 15000 would have easily earned a FIVE star rating if not for the broken stones... I recommend ordering hone and stones separately !!!

WOW! That pretty much sums up the words needed to describe this tool. I bought this to hone out the cylinders in a Ford Ranger 3.0 I recently got. The previous owner ran it hot. Super hot. Three pistons were melted and the cylinders had minor scoring. I was able to use this tool to take out .003 of material with ease. Also making the cylinders true in the process. Only complaint would be that the stones seem to wear out fast but I took out a good bit of material from 3 cylinders and still have enough meat to do another engine most probably. I would recommend this tool for anyone that does any engine work. It's easy to set up and use and way cheaper than sending the block in to the machine shop.

Genuine Lisle hone should last for years.

For reference, I earned my way through college as a professional motorcycle and marine mechanic, and I've kept my hands in small engine repair and performance work as a sideline now for decades. So, I know what I'm talking about. I own and regularly use thousands of dollars worth of hand and power tools.I purchased the Lisle 15000 rigid hone because I'd heard you can use them to grind a cylinder out to the next oversize, thereby eliminating machine shop charges. So, is this really possible?In my experience, not for most engines. There were two problems: build quality of the hone, and obstructions in the crankcase.First the quality problems. The hone works on a universal joint style connection between cutting head and driving rod. In principle, this is fine. The best Sunnen hones do the same. Unfortunately, the four pivot points in this hone are created with standard roll pins that pressed/driven in and then ground off flush. Two of the four pins fell out of my hone withing a few minutes of first use. I got them stretched-out to fit tigher and pressed them back in, but it was a harbinger of frustrations to come.Second problem: Inability to stroke the hone far-enough through the cylinder to get straight cuts:The problem is not that you can't remove material or that this hone won't correct an out-of-round condition. It will most certainly do both of those well. But removing taper and producing a straight bore with a precision fit is far beyond the capabilities of this tool with most small displacement automotive blocks. And I'll tell you why.To be fair, you might very well be able to produce a good fit and straight bore in cylinders that can be unbolted from the block, thereby eliminating obstructions from both ends of the cylinder. But for small displacement automotive engines (I was working an a Suzuki 2.0 liter, J20A block), there are obstructions just below the bottom of the cylinder wall. Thus, you CANNOT push the hone much deeper than flush with the bottom of the cylinder walls. So, grinding a proper cross-hatch pattern means pulling the hone well out of the top of the cylinder, but reversing the stroke just beyond the bottom. Result: the top of the cylinder is being ground all the time, while the bottom at most half of the time. This WILL grind a taper into the cylinder this way.Now you can muck around dressing the stones, but you'll still grind more at the top and middle than at the bottom. This wears the stones unevenly, and you'll be re-dressing the stones every several strokes.I used the included (and cheap) sandpaper-glued-to-a-stick tool to dress the stones to a reverse taper, thereby grinding with less pressure on the cylinder walls the closer you move to the top. Result: bad, bad, BAD! A proper piston fit requires honing the cylinder walls out to a tolerance of a few ten-thousandths of an inch. There is no possible way to get that precision by adjusting your cutting tool with a hunk of ultra-coarse sandpaper glued to a stick.What I got was a hone job that looked absolutely perfect to the naked eye, but measuring with a precision bore gauge revealed overall taper, with "waves" of inaccuracy at various depths in the cylinder. It just cannot be done properly with such a crude tool.In the end, I had to take the block to the machine shop after all--and that after over $200 spent on this tool, extra stones, and a powerful low-speed drill capable of running the hone without overheating. Talk about frustrating!!My advice? If you are working on a removable cylinder, you might just make this tool work. You could take long strokes and frequent measurements with a bore gauge, and adjust the dwell time of your honing pattern to achieve a more-or-less straight and accurate over-bore. Maybe this even works with larger displacement engines that have more room below the cylinders. And it would certainly be easier on engines that can accept larger clearances between piston and cylinder wall.But if you are working on a block that has obstructions close to the bottom of the cylinders you'll never cut the cylinder to be straight and accurate enough for a precision fit to your pistons. Seriously, the machine shop charges WILL be cheaper than trying to do the impossible with a cheaply-built hone, and then paying the machine shop do it anyway in the end.In summary, this project cost about $250 dollars in poor quality tools that will mostly sit in my toolbox until I do the next rebuild on an engine with removable cylinders. That's NOT a good deal. And for that reason I cannot recommend this product.

Works great! Took out .020 on a 4" cylinder! Now...before you rush to purchase this hone for removing this much material, be aware that it will take some time and muscle to achieve decent results. To achieve the desired finish took nearly 2 hrs, but the results were quite accurate.You will need a strong gear reduction 1/2" drill (no more than 800 rpm). Keep lubed with 50/50 mix of motor oil and kerosene, clean the stones often, and be patient.I did not experience any "loosening" of the stones as some other reviewers stated, though I did, however, manage to reverse my drill accidentally a time or two. (I suspect that this could have a negative effect on the stones and the mounting clips almost immediately)I am very pleased with this product.