LS Turbo Chevy Laguna Delivers A Sneaky 730 HP Punch

Ian Richardson usually features newer builds on his YouTube channel, but his latest video breaks that pattern with the first classic car he’s ever covered: Dustin’s turbo Chevy Laguna. At a glance, the Laguna reads as a tidy, mostly stock Chevelle. Pop the hood or hit the throttle, though, and a very different story shows up.

A Laguna That Almost Was A Nova

Dustin didn’t set out to build a Laguna. He was hunting for a Nova and couldn’t track one down, so his dad offered up the family Laguna instead. His father had originally bought the car out of Oregon around 1995, already missing its engine and transmission, and it sat untouched for years afterward. Dustin took the deal, and what started as a compromise turned into a long-term project.

Keeping The Build OEM Plus

Dustin calls the build original equipment manufacturer plus, or OEM plus for short, meaning he wanted the Laguna to stay close to its factory appearance rather than chase a wild aesthetic. The most obvious departure is the fender-exit exhaust, a detail that originally drew comparisons to a second-gen Camaro before Richardson got a look at the rear end.

Hood vents, pulled from a C10 truck, were added purely to help the engine bay shed heat rather than for looks. Weld Pro Star wheels round out a wheel package that trades flash for a classic look. From behind, the car gives away almost nothing about what is underneath unless a viewer looks closely.

A Tucked LS Build Breathing Through A BorgWarner S475

Under the hood sits a stock-bottom-end Gen III 6.0L V8, built around an upgraded camshaft and a Texas Speed iron intake manifold, and tuned to run on flex fuel. Power comes courtesy of a BorgWarner S475 turbocharger mounted on a T6 flange, a setup large enough to explain the fender-exit routing.

Dustin spent extra effort tucking wiring and plumbing to keep the engine bay looking clean rather than cluttered, a detail Richardson called out as one of the sharpest he has filmed. Behind the engine, a TH400 automatic transmission with a reverse-manual valve body and a PTC custom-spec converter sends power through a stock 10-bolt rearend. Dustin reinforced it with Moser axles and C-clip eliminators as insurance, running 3.42 gears and 28-inch-tall tires.

9.7 At 141 And Still A Driver

Despite the power on tap, Dustin treats the Laguna as a street car first. He said it has run a quarter-mile pass of 9.7 seconds at 141 MPH, a number that stands out considering the car weighs 4,008 pounds with Dustin inside. When asked for output figures, he quickly answered 730 and 680, numbers that line up with typical horsepower and torque readouts for a turbo combination like this, though he did not spell out the units on camera.

On the ride-along, the Laguna launched hard enough that Richardson said the rear end stayed lit the entire time, a detail the in-car footage did not fully capture. Dustin mentioned his wife was not initially sold on the fender-exit exhaust, but it has since grown on her. He also drove forty-five minutes to bring the Laguna out for the video, a commitment Richardson credited on camera. For a car built around a missed Nova deal and a long dormant stretch, the Laguna has turned into one of the more memorable sleepers on the scene.