I've got a 97 SE. My wife ran over a median strip and cracked the transmission wide open. The car had about 115k miles at the time. My local repair shop replaced the tranny with another 97 with just a few less miles on it. Prior to this little mishap, I had noticed that when slowing down to go around a corner, the engine really revved up before downshifting asI begin to accelerate out of the turn.This replacement tranny does this even more. It will rev up to about 4k rpms before it goes into a gear coming out of a turn. And this is even at low speeds. I'm not trying to hotrod this thing around cornersat all. From a standing stop, it pulls fine and feels completely normal, but if I roll thru a turn or get on / off a freeway ramp, the thing revs like it's lost before it engages a gear. The mechanic told me it was normal for the 94-97s. I have a hard time believing that. I have heard of the fill / drain 3 times with Honda ATF, but haven't tried it yet. Has anyone heard of this happening?

 

There is a cable that goes from the throttle body to the pressure lever on the front of the trans.
Loosen the 2-12mm nuts and get a little slack in the cable; Then adjust the cable tension so that the pressure lever just barely starts to rise when the engine RPM increases slightly when you open the throttle, with your other hand.

The driving test for proper adjustment;

Drive along a level road coasting at light throttle 25 mph, floor the gas pedal.
The trans should downshift to First gear.
Repeat the drive at 28 mph, when you floor the gas the trans should only drop down to Second gear.
I have noticed that symptom before in 96-97s though not as bad as you describe, but it seems like the trans is sometimes getting confusedif it wants to downshift or not.
The other thing I've noticed about those years/trans is a 2-3 second delay going into drive when shifting from park.

 

Mine does the exact same thing, but not quite as extreme.
And it is good to know that mine isn't the only one that takes awhile to go into drive from park. I usually sit there with the brake on until I feel it go in drive from park.

 

Thanks Hondadude. I see the cables. Next question, the cable that I see with the 2 12mm nutsappears to be the cable that runs thru the firewall to the gas pedal, not to the tranny. I see the cable running to the tranny, but I don't see any adjustment spot on it. Both cables have slack in them, so I'm sure that this is where my problem lies.