Generally, primary size affects where peak torque will occur, and primary length affects how much of your torque is above or below your peak torque rpm. There are tools out there that give rough estimates of what your primary diameter should be based on where you'd like your peak torque to be. For example if you were to write the equation on this website (http://victorylibrary.com/mopar/header-tech-c.htm) for a 6-cyl motor you'd have:
OD = (RPM × Motor Size ÷ 415,633)^.5 + .098”
If you plug in 183ci (3L) into that equation you'll see that for a 3500rpm peak torque you'd want a 1.34" primary and that for a 4000rpm peak torque you'd want a 1.43" primary. A 1 1/2" primary would put your peak torque around 4464rpm. When I compare the result that this equation gives to my dyno result I do see a correlation

For a 2.8L (171ci) motor a peak torque at 4000rpm would require a 1.38" primary. I'm running the Bavauto headers which have 1.38" primaries and my peak torque was around 4000rpm. Obviously there are other variables at play such as cam profiles, cam timing, collector design, etc, but generally I haven't seen anything yet to prove that 1 3/8" primaries would be holding back an M20 stroker.

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