Well, two worn out steel brushes, and 5 cans of brake cleaner later, I have one half of the intake manifold mounting surface / valley is cleaned down to the paint. I have the other half probably 1/2 cleaned up as well, but I am out of brake cleaner and wire brushes, lol
And yes, I pressure washed the snot out of this thing before I took the manifold etc off, and I thought I cleaned it up pretty good too!
Oh well, the outside of the block / heads are not nearly as greasy, shouldn't take me much longer to have this thing ready to be painted

I already have the intake manifold / pressure pot lid all cleaned up, along with all of the aluminum parts less the turbo's compressor housing. I'll be taking all of it in to get it bead blasted to bring out that new aluminum look then either paint it with something that looks like clean aluminum, or find some sort of a high temp clearcoat to keep it from corroding...
I did make some good progress today as far as buying parts go, got my girdle kit, timing chain kit, and all my gaskets. Once it is cleaned up, it'll be a matter of buying and installing a 99 water crossover with the dual thermostat stuff and the 99 high flow water pump, along with a new harmonic balancer. I have the rest of the parts here and ready to go...
I'm hoping to have the engine together and ready to go into my truck by the end of March, and have the NV4500 bolted up and ready to go shortly afterwards. My goal is to have the truck running and driving by June so I can get my new tires on, tie up any loose ends, and hit the road for the last week in June when we have our first camping trip
Lookin' forward to driving the thing after a good 4 years!