Ron, in answer to the questions you raised:
1. You might not need to remove the hood, but it will make you life so much easier if you do. Removal of the hood is easy, but you’ll need a friend help. Installation is tricky (you’ll need that friend again) in terms of getting the hood aligned properly. But that will be much easier to achieve if, before you even loosen the hood bolts, you take a water based or some other type of eraseable marker and carefully mark the outline of the hood hinge where it meets the hood mounting flange. There’s also a hole in the middle of the hinge, so mark the outline of that while you’re at it. Then when you go to reinstall the hood, that makes it much easier to get the hood right back where it was on the hood hinge. The better your mark, the closer you’ll get it to being exactly where it was.
2. You do NOT have to remove the front bumper cover. There’s a rubber flap under the nose of your car (if it’s a wide body/front feed air flow setup) that you need to remove to slide the H/X core up into position. The only thing you will have to remove is the inner fender liner on the right side in order to move the horns and mount the H/X pump.
3. You do NOT need the Magnuson coil brackets for the Holley valve covers, either the tall or regular height. You’ll only need to use the small bracket supplied by Holley on the right side cover to move the coil for #1 cylinder back away from the alternator. The Holley covers definitely work and look a damn sight better. I’ve had both styles on my car.

The lift probably does help a bit, but it’s not necessary. You’re going to need to get under the car to drop the engine cradle down a bit, as recommendended by Magnuson. This is mainly for ease of installation of the blower lid, which slides under the cowl a bit, and it also gives you a little more space to shove your hand behind the blower to get at those two bastard bolts I warned you about, because the firewall is curved inwards a bit and so when you lower the engine down a bit (relative to the body of the car) by lowering the cradle, you get a little more space between the firewall and the blower housing.
With the hood off and the car on jack stands at a height where you can roll under it to get to the cradle bolts, but not too high that you can’t lean over the fenders and reach everything, you’ll be able to do everything yourself, including the steering rack.
You can get at the HX pump/ horn relocation bracket etc. from under the right fender well, which will offer plenty of space, since you’re going to be taking off the front wheels anyhow to get the tie rod ends off (if you do the rack yourself).
the brake cooling duct that Magnuson refers to in their manual is attached to the plastic cowling that’s attached to the fender well liner. All of that stuff comes out pretty easy once you remove all the clips and bolts.
The rubber flap that I referred to earlier is a piece of rubber that seals off the cavity below and in front of the radiator, where the base models breathe through. On the wide body cars, they blocked this off with a piece of rubber that’s fastened by a bunch of small bolts. I think it’s meant to enhance high speed aerodynamics. I never reinstalled mine because as far as I’m concerned, these cars need all the air they can get through the radiator.
Here’s my recommendation: Reread the installation manual and keep asking questions as necessary until you’re familiar with every aspect of the install. Then, when you start the install, keep stopping at every stage and read it again.
intried earlier today to attach some photos, but for some reason I couldn’t. I have no idea why.

Did you order it already? I would’ve gone for the 10% O/D Race version of the Powerbond (I’ll see if I can find a part #). That way, you can run a bigger blower pulley to get the same boost while avoiding the chance of belt slip. Best of both worlds...

Edit: Just saw that you already have it. Here’s the one I would install:
http://www.daycoproducts.com/part?ca...3DPBO81117SC10
Summit doesn’t have them in stock right now, but I recall that Colorado Speed had them for plenty cheaper than anyone else a while back. You might want to check with them and if they have it, send that one back to Summit and get the Dayco Part # PBO81117SC10. With this balancer and the stock Magnuson 96mm pulley, you will be running the same pulley ratio (2.11:1) and, consequently, same blower speed and boost as you would with the stock sized balancer and a 90mm pulley. And you would have 8-rib upgradability right off the bat as well.