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Rising fuel prices and more stringent vehicle emissions requirements are increasing the pressure on engine manufacturers to utilize technologies to increase efficiency and reduce emissions. As a result, interest in cylinder surface coatings has risen considerably in the past few years. Among these are SUMEBore® coatings from Sulzer Metco. These coatings are applied by a powder-based air plasma spray (APS) process. The APS process is very flexible, and can process materials which wire-based methods cannot, particularly metal matrix composites and pure ceramics. Applications range from small 2-stroke engines, motorcycles, and lightweight passenger car engines, up to high-speed diesel truck engines and medium-speed diesel engines. The compositions of the coatings can be tailored to the specific challenges in an engine, e.g., excessive abrasive wear, scuffing, corrosion caused by adulterated fuel, improved heat transfer from the combustion chamber into the water jacket, etc.