So I ended up getting my fascia just about perfect. Still have to mess with the headlights. Honestly, the guides were a good reference to know what I was looking at but the overall adjustments can be distilled as follows:
This assumes your hood is in good adjustment to the doors, and the doors are in good adjustment to the quarter panels.
Part 1 - corner gaps
measure bumper to hood side gap.
Take bumper off.
unbolt radiator core support from all supporting brackets and upper frame horns.
Shim radiator core support up at the lower frame horns by the amount of your measurement in step 1.
Take measurement from the corners of the frame support to the hood.
reattach frame support to upper frame horns. re-measure to make sure the gaps did not significantly change. (You may have to either re-drill the holes or enlarge the core support holes to get it to bolt back up. This is fine - there is no guide for this from the factory. The guys in the Connors plant mounted the core support by eye and used self tapping screws to mount to the frame. You're doing the same thing but adjusting for core support sag over the years.)
loosely attach the reinforcing brackets to the core support.
test mount the bumper.
Minor adjustments can be made to fit by pushing or pulling on the bumper when tightening the reinforcing bracket bolts.
Part 2 - center gap to hood
This is the easy part. there is a ton of adjustment between the various bolts on the bumper support. Most of the time you can just hold the bumper up where you want it and have someone reach though the bumper and tighten the bolts. In rare cases you might need to shim underneath the bumper lip on top of the bumper support reinforcing bar. I did not have to do that, and find it very hard to believe anyone would if they get the rest of the steps correct and the frame is square on the car.
Step 3 - hood adjustment
Minor tweaks can be made to the front hood latches and stop bumpers to make it latch lower or higher. There is not as much adjustment here as people think and it should be a last step IMO. pull the hood down too tight and you will snap the latch bar or crack your hood.
Step 4 - headlight adjustment
This step is much easier if you remove the hood or bumper BUT that involves a ton of trial and error. I found the best way to do it is to remove the fender liner and reach in through the engine bay. That allows you to shim the headlight, put the hood down to check the gap, immediately raise the hood, and the make any necessary adjustments. You will likely need shims. The radiator support in my car was far too sagged in this area to get away without significant shimming on the headlights. Also - when you have the bumper off, you may want to consider replacing the bolts on the headlight studs with wing nuts. Will make it much, much easier to tighten the studs once you have the headlight where you want it.
Hope this helps - I can't take credit for all of this, GTSDean was a lot of help. Maybe he'll post his powerpoint guide with pictures if he sees this.
