No elbow grease here and havn;t cleaned an engin eby hand for 10 years or more. The only thing I clean by hand are the fasteners, and odd small parts. The company that does your machining work should have killer cleaning equipment. My comes out nearly clean enough to eat on. I take everything down there, even stuff that isn't getting machined like the oil pan. Comes out really amazingly clean.

The shop I use doesn't charge extra for cleaning extra parts as long as the whole lot is still just one load in the machine and you are having a reasonably full suite of engine machining services done. Even if all they do is clean the head and cut valve seats they should be willing to clean the whole engine for a reasonable charge; maybe $40-$75.

Clean an engine once by hand, and then see an engine cleaned for free or for $40 by machine and you will NEVER do it by hand again.

By the way, the machine is really neat. Just like a huge dish washing machine for engines. The cleaner that runs through the machine is heated and everyhing, just like a dishwasher. They run it for hours as opposed to 30 minutes though.

NCDiesel