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The prepped sample would need to be a small 2" section of cylinder wall that has seen treatment, to fit it in the scanning electron microscope, and a control sample from a similar cylinder for comparison. Providing and prepping samples are the hardest part of the investigation.
But would it have to be a cylinder wall? Couldn't a hunk of appropriate metal be ran through some appropriate process for embedding the material at some temp in oil solution ..perhaps under pressure from another like material (to provide the pressure)? Then a virgin control piece compared?
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If Cermax1 had truly spent a lot of time and money on his invention, and was curious (as inventors should be), and serious about his product, he would have contracted a lab to do such an analysis to gain a basic understanding of how the product works and possibly how to make it better.
While I certainly agree with you to a very high degree, I also have to consider something like Frank's operation. It's truly lower budget on comprehensive testing (as in something like the SWRI grade of testing) just due to lack of the massive capital required. Most of your snake oils came into being like Starbucks and many other emergent "nature's way of saying that you make too much money". Zmax, Prolong, Duralube all came out with massive infomercial campaigns that surely cost a bundle. This leads to figuring that the product itself is very cheap. So, you throw out a product ...market the heck out of it. The producers, marketers, and endorsement celebrities make a decent buck ..and you get a product that would never pay for itself in avoided costs. I imagine that these types of products are where you have a lower grade millionaire that roves around in such investment circles and has a regular association with people looking to multiply their money. It usually ends up being a game of leaving someone else holding the bag ..where they promise territories with the purchase of (something like) $250k of the product ..then the fine print requires them to do that every year or lose their franchise/territory rights ..so the producer can move on to the next mark.
..but the testing you're describing should not really cost all that much. You just need to buy two new Briggs and Straton engines from the same production date..run one with and one without. Same oil, same hours, same load...cut the cylinders up and test for hardness difference. Now it would cost a bit to have the metallurgical testers control the entire test ..but just having the liners tested shouldn't be all that bad (or so I imagine).
