Well there are some things you can do to to add a little torque. Honda used a stiffer valve train and lighter valves on the intake side in their 98 spec R's Vs the 96 spec.There was an increase of .5Kgm (about 4 foot pounds) in the 98 Spec over the 96 Spec. Not only that the 98 SPec was 19kgm(137 ft-lbs)@6200 while the 96 spec was 18.5kgm(133ft-lbs)@7500
So this along with the ECu added a bit more Torque and moved it lower.

No if you want to keep the torque on the low end you might want to kgo with a 4-2-1 Vs 4-1. Go with an exhaust no bigger than 2.25" Mugen Twin Loop is suppoesed to be goo to maintain torque as well, but I don't know that First hand