1998 Honda Civic Transmission Flare

Rivermikerat, I'll do the test when I can. This weekend put OEM cruise in my other DX so that took up several hours. I'm assuming you're looking to see if 3rd clutch is bad by low pressure?
KHLow2008, I may try the royal purple after the pressure test and figuring out if the PCM is sending bad signals or not. Is Royal Purple more viscous or something? Could you explain what exactly the CRV was doing? I'm curious to see what connections there are because I think some of the CRV's used the A4RA 4-speed also?
Bgorpy, Thanks for your support. This has been quite an experience and I feel like I know almost everything about the car except how the inside of the transmission looks! I don't have any plans on giving up as I have two cars doing identical things. It's good to know now that a Civic EX, V-tec stock from factory with the B4RA transmission can have the same problem. I'm wondering in our case also if the CPC vavle spring may have lost part of a coil thus causing low pressure problems? One thing I would like to know is someone who has this problem and had the car before it started doing it, is if it happened immediately or if the flare came on slowly?

Ihbigred, You are welcome! I am a little confused by your comment about " a Civic EX, V-tec stock from the factory with a B4RA transmission." I thought my 1996 EX came with the A4RA. Is the B4RA only used with the V-tec engines? Also, what does CPC stand for(constant pressure control?)? Thanks!

KHLow2008, thanks, but what about the royal purple, what is the difference between it than the Honda ATF besides one being synthetic?

Bgorpy, Sorry, in 97 they came out with a different 4-speed along with the A4RA and I forgot yours was a 96. CPC stands for clutch pressure control. The spring is for the CPC valve in the tranny and is known to fail due to stress.

Read thru all of this posting. I have a 98 Honda CRV with the same flaring issue. This don't happen when the engine is cold or car has been sitting for a while, also doesn't happen when I floor the gas. Didn't seem to happen over the winter too, as Missouri weather is cold, but then again I had a open thermostat so engine was running cold (after replacement I didn't notice it). Anyway its getting warmer here again and I have seen the symptoms come back again, esp. If the engine is in normal operating temperature. I have been driving the CRV like this for almost 3 years (since 116, 00 bought used); and yet to find a solution.

Things I've done which will relate to this:
DRAIN & FILL 4X w/HG Fluids
Inspect/Clean solenoids
Replace thermostat
Flushed Radiator
Timing belt/water pump
PLUGS/WIRES.

Anyways, GOod to know I am not alone with this problem. And thank you!
1998 HONDA CRV 135000

Kmomotaro, Thanks for the input. I don't plan to stop until I find the problem because no one else has found it yet and I'd like there to be at least one thread with the answer to this problem.
I have recently found a friend who I think has a 97 Civic DX that doesn't have this flaring problem, at least he says he doesn't. He gave me permission to have full access to it in which I plan to pull information, run tests, swap out parts and see if anything I do external to the transmission will make it act up. I'll update on this when I have a chance to play with his car.

I've built a gauge that I can have attached the the transmission while driving down the road to test pressures at shift points. I just need to get my car back as my brother has been borrowing it for the past few weeks. Thinking more about this, it's a warm condition as kmomotaro has reiterated. Things that happen when the overall temperature of the car is warmer is that the transmission fluid is thinner, the ECT sensor sends a lower resistance to the ECM, seals soften up and become more pliable. Resistance in wires increases (even if minimal it's still a suspect. Components expand. Just food for thought to maybe provoke an idea?

Kinda what I thought about the CPC valve that I mentioned earlier on. I've heard that the spring can lose a coil or more after use and wondered if that valve in particular could cause this problem only from second to third?

KHLow2008
That's kind of where I've been leaning the whole time with this car. I haven't been able to take shift pressures yet because of working on a Powerstroke engine miss and working on the other civic I converted over to V-tec. Which is interesting. So I had updated earlier on in this thread that when I finished converting the other civic to V-tec that the shift flare persisted. Well it did, but now it has stopped! The only things I switched were some pin out locations on the wiring harness to match the PCM, the PCM and the Intake manifold. I'm gonna say I may have a combination issue with this car. I had replaced the PCM with other used PCM's but never a known good one. So I'm gonna go find a known good one and try this out. Second reason I believe this is because what KHLow just mentioned above, and secondly I just finished working on a 2000 Accord with delayed shifting and hard shifts and hot soak issues. Swapped out engine and tranny for known good 2002 drivetrain and still had issues. So swapped 2000 PCM with 2002 good unit and wallah! No more shifting or hot soak issues! So I'm gonna bet my money that this is either only a PCM issue or combination PCM and linear solenoid because I've heard that one can knock the other out.

Yeah, I would agree and I actually contacted Honda about reflashing my PCM and they informed me that these PCM's can not be reflashed. So I guess the only option to update is with a new PCM or known good one. Also I wanted to let kmomotaro and bgorpy know that someone wanted to buy my car regardless of it having this problem. I've ended up selling my problem car and no longer have it at my disposal to do tests on but I am friends with the individual and if I find a good PCM I'm going to swap it out and see what the results are. Please keep this thread updated with what you all do. I'd like to know the fix for this!

Ihbigred, rivermikerat, KHLow2008 - I have still not solved the flaring issue on my 96 ex. I was hoping that ihbigred was going to have an answer. After re-reading through this thread, I was wondering if it was possible to set up a band-aid fix using the potentiometer that was mentioned in ihbigred's earlier posr where the flare issue was eliminated when the coolant sensor was pushed down to 150 ohms. My questions are these: 1 - what would have to be done to duplicate the results in ihbigred's January 27, 2012 posting? 2 - If this was used as a way to resolve the flare issue, would this cause any other problems to be concerned about? I would appreciate any expert opinions. It seems that if I used a potentiometer and changed the resistance of the ECT ( as ihbigred did) after the car warmed up, I could eliminate the flare issue. Again, any expert opins are appreciated!