I have a 2.5" exhaust on my car. I know I know, it's only a B16. Should be fine on 2.25" right? Well, my future plans include a hefty set of cams. With those, the need for a 2.5" exhaust arises. I knew I wanted to get I/H/E done first, but I knew I didn't want to end up buying two exhausts (one right now, and one after the cams). So in the end I just decided to go with 2.5", even though it might've been too big.
I'm perfectly happy with my setup.
I have pretty much no noticeable gains in power below 4500 rpm, and no significant gains below 5500. But that's okay, because I didn't care about performance when I'm lugging around town. Plus, my motor has to have the snot revved out of it to get it to go anywhere. But that's sort of beside the point.
What I'm trying to get at is this: go with a turbo exhaust. If I were you, I'd do something like 2.5" or close to that. That should be fine with stock boost on a D16. And your low-end will be more liveable for the time that you are pre-boost.
As a side note, just adding a cam gear to a SOHC will not do much. You'd really need to have a performance cam in there, as "tuning" the stock one won't do much good. I say get the exhaust, or save a little more and get a set of wheels, man!