i have an 03 tl type-s and occasionally when i change from park or reverse to drive i can feel the tranny taking a second or two hooking up and sometimes if i don't wait for that period of time the car jerks a bit when i step on the gas. automatic shifting in drive is silky smooth it's just when i change from p/r to d.

 

It could be your engine or transmission mounts. Id do a search here and see what you find.

 

are you part of the extended trans warranty cars?
call acura and ask 1 800 382 2238 x5
that goes to 109kmiles/7 years plus 9 months

ck front motor mount and passenger side mount
the front is a fluid filled unit that fails about 60kmiles--120$ part!!

stop making it go into gear!!
It takes 1-2 seconds for a normal TL trans to engage from N to D,,do not be moving at all if going r to d!~
Longer than that indicates a problem
Ever change the fluid? how many miles on car/trans now?,
smell the trans fluid on dipstick for burnt oil smell

 

Usally if your feeling the jerk or a bang while engauging
rev to drive, it will be the rear motor mount.
drive to reverse, it will be the front motor mount.

 

Interesting. When I shift into reverse from anywhere, its silky smooth and shifts instantly. But when I shift from park/neutral/reverse to Drive, I feel the car engaging slightly for about a second and if I gas it during that moment, I get like a slip feeling. But after another second, it completely engages and that's when its perfect. I asked someone and they said it was the gas cutoff to prevent you from reving while shifting from neutral into drive. This could be what the OP is talking about if this is true.

 

someone fed you a line- final

front motor mount breaks anytime after 50 and is very common failure
then extra load wipes out the passenger side mount
if you continued to drive like that for a year.. you can break the rear mount too

look on front and rear from under the car for small oil traces and compressed bushing.
most years are oil filled and vac boosted front/rear mounts so a failure makes a mystery vac leak

if its not motor mounts the next suspect is `line pressure` in the trans.
ever change the fluid?

 

Just got the car at 124k and now at 128, but the tranny fluid looks bright red. I don't even want to touch my tranny after hearing all these horror stories. I am def going to get my mounts checked soon by a professional.

 

whats the status of the timing belt water pump job? done at 105?

 

How much movement of the engine do you have while revving in-gear with a death grip on the brakes?

Look anything like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3xvZYkW5fc

 

It's hard to tell to me that close on the mount. It's moving alot but it don't look really too bad,its hard to tell.
Hold the brake and shift from reverse to drive then, shift from drive to reverse with the cammera farther away.
You should then see it better

 

I think it's excessive....here's the full version. Maybe it doesn't look that way in the video but face to face to me it's obvious. The guy revving didn't really hit the gas like I wanted. But a tell-tale sign that the mount is going is the delay when accelerating with constant foot pressure. Wasn't there after mount was first installed.

So I was recommending to the OP if he did this test & got play like this, mounts were probably shot.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ib0Ubp-WS6I

 

its really hard to tell from above--easy ck is look from under the car UP at the front and rear mounts
If there is an tiny oil trail of very thin wierd oily fluid--thats motor mount goo!!
Mine left 3 small drops on the driveway

when you see the new mount installed the differance is obvious-- how the rubber sits and the mount ~just looks right~

these go anytime after 50-60kmiles so ck it out

 

My main comparison is that after I installed the mount, I noticed right away that the car started moving much more smoothly when accelerating at the lightest touch of the gas. Now that delay/acceleration-jump is back (if you accelerate from a stop with constant gas pedal pressure).

It may not be shot to the point where the engine jumps out the bay, but the mount is not performing as good as it did when it was installed...which was about a month (~1.5k miles) ago.

 

plus the mystery vac leak a bad front or rear mount causes with poor engine performace

for tricky throttle: try cleaning and lube the return springs at TB, and remove the intake snout to access the TB- spray clean the air plate on both front and back plus edges- wipe up runoff from cleaner