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Unless the gauge was seriously small you probably wouldn't notice the effect of wire smaller than ideal. What occurs is insertion loss, as the delivered voltage is reduced due to the resistance of the wire being too high relative to the impedance of the speakers. A couple of dB isn't really audible, but it does waste amp power. If you need to strip away a few strands of 14ga to fit into the amp connectors that won't affect the overall resistance of the full run of the wire.
While on the subject, I've wondered why the H-K woofers are 8 ohm. One possible reason is to keep the wire gauge small. There's a lot of wire in these cars, which adds up to a lot of weight, the sum total of which will affect fuel economy. The higher power of the H-K system results in higher current, which also requires a heavier gauge wire, unless you increase the speaker impedance to compensate, while increasing the voltage swing capacity of the amp to drive the higher impedance load. It's the only reason I can think of that justifies going with 8 ohm woofers.
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