Of course it improves when installing cold air induction, I wasn't arguing that.
I was trying to explain that for airflow, enlarging the size of tubing would not matter,
once it exceeds the size of the intake tube / manifold.
Just simply try to visualize it in your mind, by removing everything in front of the MAF (air filter/tubing) ... or even the manifold.
Now THAT HOLE is your airflow.
Then start visualizing holding an enormous tube - 10 miles wide - to that hole.
It doesn't matter, you see ?
This is true only for stattic air. The air in an engine bay is anything but stattic. The volume of air in a 100mm section of pipe is greater than that of an 80mm pipe of the same length. Once you then factor in the fact that air starts to be pushed into the intake simply by the movement of the car, you are starting to increase the pressure.
Since the turbo works by sucking air through the air filter normally, if you then increase the pressure on the other side of the filter (larger intake duct) then you are starting to overcome some of the vacuum. In short the air then travells into the MAF at a greater rate as it is now not just being sucked in, but also pushed in by atmospheric pressure as well.
It is exactly how RAM-Air works on motorcycles and how the manufactures quote such high power figures. a 2008 yamaha R1 makes a genuine 160 ish bhp, but with RAM air (they test in wind tunnels to reflect the speed of the bike at that engine speed) the quoted output is over 180bhp.