In the turbocharged tuning world, a 3" pipe is generally fine for any < 600 hp application (i.e., you don't need to exceed 3" unless you are planning to exceed 600 hp). A 2.5" pipe doesn't tend to be a bottleneck until you exceed 300 to 350 hp.
NA engines might be different, but everything I've read agrees with hackish. The "dual" system numbers mcrews has listed might be closer to what a single-pipe system is able to support.
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