Its easy to sand the HONDA portion down.
Simply tape off around it, grab a block and some 180g paper, go to town.
Get it down to aluminum, where its all flat and even, pits sanded out, etc.. Then sand it with some 320 on a block. Followed up by 600 wet on a block, and 1500 wet to polish the letters. It's how I do all of my covers (i've painted 18-20 now for various people throughout the country) with letters and it works great.
You can also do whatever polish design you want to the letters by moving the block different directions (cross hatch, swirl, horizontal, vertical, etc.)