uh I believe fluid prefers to flow along the surface rather than the center. By choosing a too large pipe diameter, you slow down the flow... not good. By having a good exhaust velocity, you reduce pressure in the exhaust pipes (Bernoulli eqn) and improve scavaging (and for turbos, increase the pressure differential across the turbos). But if exhaust velocities are too high, frictional losses from flow along the surface increases and so a certain amount of energy (back pressure) is needed to expel the exhaust gases. So too small a pipe diameter is not good either. I think there is an optimal pipe size for a given hp...