If you have a Civic, you must install strut tower bars, and this is a well-known fact. Unless you don't have the internet, you basically understand how a strut tower bar works and how it mounts to the frame. Every aftermarket bar I've seen (with the exception of the Neuspeed unit with two small contact pads) has a large, flat mount surface that is secured to the shock top-hat studs. This is actually a very good way to brace the frame, since the loads are transferred directly from the shock to the bar without having a separate mount point on the sheetmetal, as per some OEM tower bars (Integra, EG civic, etc).
However, your Civic, as mine did, may have a problem with flat area on the shock towers. See the below pics:
You need to remove the body sealer circled in red. I took a screwdriver and GENTLY pried the bulk of the sealer off the strut tower. After that, you'll need a Dremel with a couple different brushes. At first, use the nylon-bristle brush to remove any remaining sealer. After that, take a stainless-steel brush to remove as much surface rust as you can. After those steps, your tower will look like this:
When you're satisfied with the level of crap-removal, clean the surface with rubbing alcohol. This not only removes particulate contamination, but also removes grease and oils and stuff.
Post-alcohol, it looks like this
After that, start masking stuff off. Here's some pics:
You can see what's basically going on so I won't give the play-by-play.
After that, I shot three coats of primer and three of Duplicolor metallic black that, in theory, matches Honda black. Try to avoid overspray.
Towers are done:
...and the final result. My color matching skills are terrible at best. Honestly, the color difference is very noticeable with flash photography, and not so much otherwise.
Soon I will have a tower bar to detract from any color discrepancy, and it will have a nice mating surface on the shock tower.
