24 in some examples the parent material of the cylinder bore wall 24 may be a cast iron alloy or an aluminum alloy however other types of alloys may be used without departing from the scope of the invention the coating 30 is bonded to the parent material of the cylinder bore wall 24 using any one of a number of methods one such method is a plasma transferred wire arc thermal spray apparatus as explained in u s pat no 5 938 944 other similar methods or variations of the disclosed methods may be used without departing from the scope of the invention after the coating 30 is applied to the inner surface 26 of the cylinder bore wall 24 an inner surface 32 of the coating 30 may be machined to achieve a precise fit with the piston and achieve a prescribed surface finish or hone pattern turning now to fig3 with continuing reference to fig2 a number of example alloys are shown in table format and will now be described the alloys 1 4 are prepared in wire or powder form and used in the thermal spray apparatus to deposit the alloys 1 4 on the inner surface 26 of the cylinder bore wall 24 to form the coating 30 example alloy 1 is based on a carbon steel alloy in particular having carbon c in the range of about 0 15 to about 0 75 weight percent wt manganese mn in the range of about 0 50 to about 2 50 wt chromium cr at about 3 00 wt maximum molybdenum mo at about 1 00 wt maximum silicon si.