BMW and Honda have used Nikasil in their motorcycles for years. It's a nickel alloy plating that is extremely hard and wear resistent. There has been an issue with Nikasil and high sulfur (cheap) fuel that affected BMW engines. Usually you see the plating when they want to save a little weight and maybe cost by not running iron liners in an aluminum cylinder. It does look like chrome, almost. You can get your cylinders Nikasil plated, but with an iron block there really isn't a point in it. Datsun casts their iron blocks with a couple percent nickel, so the benefit is already there. I haven't heard or seen a plated intake, (inside). I would think a thermal coating would be more effective.