Spoken like a true american, gotta be scared, for your own safety!

 

Just wanted to follow-up -- first oil change this morning, and my experience was just as y'all said it would be. Although nobody mentioned what a delightfully open area it is under there for getting at the filter! I bought a cap wrench sized to fit the replacement filter, and as I'm finding to be the case these days, the OEM filter was too small for it (by just enough of a milimeter to make you buy the Honda wrench, I'm sure). I don't have a strap wrench (that'll change shortly) so to unscrew the factory filter, I used a 3-inch pipe wrench - *very* gently. I've *never* worked on a car where there was enough space to get at the filter with an 18-inch long pipe wrench. The logic and clear thinking of these Honda engineers never ceases to amaze me.

Oh, and I only broke one fairing pin.

thanks all for the advice --
doug