We first got into portals when one of the guys in our wheeling group built a portal buggy using a set of surplus Unimog 404 axles back in 2009. He also had a pair of old aftermarket MSI steel portal boxes and wanted to get two more of them, but they were no longer being manufactured. He knew we had some modest CNC equipment and so he hit us up to make him a pair of boxes. We reverse engineered the stock Unimog box, added some material where we saw failures in the past, and created a new box out of aluminum.We slowly tackled a few other parts on the Unimog 404 axles. We made a conversion kit to accept Wilwood brakes, a new aluminum hub that was lighter than the OEM hub, and other miscellaneous parts. Ultra4 was at its infancy, but even back then we knew portals would one day dominate the trails of Johnson Valley. No lift kit would ever provide you ground clearance below the axles. In a game where inches mattered, portals ruled this world.

In 2015 we had the opportunity to work with Armada Engineering on a four-wheel independent suspension Ultra4 race car. This was the first real test which proved to be a very valuable learning experience. The portals on this car were based around the stock Unimog 404 gears with custom machined uprights, aluminum boxes, and aluminum hubs. This was a huge improvement, but we were still relying on the antiquated design of the original Unimog gears. Everything held up great with the exception of the factory Unimog gearset, which given the horsepower, proved to not be happy with the high speeds and shock loads of an Ultra4 car in the desert. It was at this point that we decided to move down the line, chase the next weak link and produce our own gear set. We ended up with a 1.55:1 ratio gearset, which was significantly stronger than the factory Unimog gearset, but we were still constrained by the groundwork laid out by Mercedes engineers from decades earlier. We started to really learn what was not working for Ultra4 and in the process we explored new bearing options, ideas, and gear design.

In 2018 we started developing at a totally new design for a portal. We knew we wanted to go with a four-gear design, which would not reverse the rotation. Reversing the rotation is not really an issue, but it requires that the differential be flipped. This meant that anyone who currently had a vehicle would have to do major modifications to ever consider going to a portal. It would be a significant expense to make the conversion. From a design standpoint we knew that we could do a better job of producing a more serviceable portal based on our years of fighting units that were not designed by the people that were forced to work on them. After years of bloody hands and smashed fingers, we were well aware of the Unimog portal serviceability issues and we had ideas on how to make them more serviceable. One of the main things we didn’t like was the factory Unimog hub assembly design. While fighting a particularly difficult hub one night we thought “Why can’t this be an easy pull like a unit bearing?”

A unit bearing is a sealed bearing pack that is used in almost every truck and car these days because of its simplicity and ease of service. You simply unbolt it and replace it with a new one. Spidertrax Off-Road had been building unit bearings for years and the company’s reputation for performance in Ultra4 was unquestioned. If we were able to make a gear register into the unit bearing pack we could easily integrate this proven unit bearing design into a portal. We would no longer have to run a hub seal and the entire portal unit would literally only have one rotary seal at the upper stub shaft. This would also give us the ability to remove the entire lower gear and hub with four bolts. It was the serviceability and dependability we were looking for. We also knew that if we were ever to develop for an OEM application a portal would need a way to integrate ABS sensors. Many OEM unit bearings have this feature built in.

It was now time to design the portal we wanted to work on. We started with a bearing package based around a gear set. These are equally important as they must complement each other. We found that if we made the lower gear hollow we could sink the lower A-arm into the portal and support the lower gear with a massive needle bearing. We now had a three-bearing lower package. The two opposing tapered roller bearings in the unit bearing were designed to handle both axial and radial loads and the needle bearing would provide additional radial support. It also tied the upright into the box making it a cohesive unit that would share the ridiculous shock loads delt out by a 6,000-pound truck doing 100 mph through the desert. The first 4 Gear Race Portal was designed for Eric Hustead, a Trophy Truck driver who was already running our 2 Gear Portal on his AWD truck. As of June 2022 he is still running and winning races on the first set of 4 Gear Portals we ever produced.

As Eric Hustead’s Trophy Truck took shape, we began talking with Ford Performance about the company’s Ultra4 4600 race program. Ford wanted to debut the new Ford Bronco at King of the Hammers in the 4600 stock class. Ford was on a mission to not just show up, but show up and dominate. We showed Ford our new 4 Gear Race Portal design and how it could lift the Bronco without maxing out the CV axle joint angle. The portals would also reduce the stress on the rest of the drivetrain and allow the clearance needed to run larger tires. A portal on independent suspension is an easy sell if you look at all the benefits. Ford Performance got this and we started developing a bolt-on portal for the Bronco race program. When the trucks were debuted at KOH in 2022 they did something that has never been done before. They not only swept the qualifying going 1,2,3 but on race day that cruised to a decisive sweep of the podium going 1,2,3 again. This was huge for a program that put in so much effort and time. Racing is always unpredictable and all the money in the world can’t buy a win. As I write this in July of 2022 these Ford Bronco’s have qualified first for every race they have entered and come race day have taken first place in every single main event. This trend will surely not last forever, but the durability of these portals is without question.

In 2021 we rolled out 4 Gear Race units for Loren Healy and Vaughn Gittin Jr. in their new Triton Engineering Ultra4 race cars. In the Trophy Truck class we had the privilege of outfitting Geiser Brothers and Brenthel Industries trucks with portals. Our 4 Gear Race Portals have won races in the US and Baja. This race design has seen tens of thousands of race miles through the toughest terrain and has proven to be reliable. Since their initial release we have made a few minor improvements, but the overall design remains the same. We have worked to lighten the gear sets and we have designed new uprights for different applications as every vehicle’s suspension geometry is slightly different, but the portals have proven to handle the horsepower and abuse of these race vehicles.

Racing allows us to quickly push the limits of a unit to find any weak points in a way that no other testing really can. It is often said that in testing you need to fail and fail fast. The destructive nature of racing is perfect for durability testing and with this in mind, we set out to take what we have learned from racing and transition this to the mass market. We have always believed that a portal for the Jeep market would be the ultimate lift kit. In 2021 we expanded our engineering department with the intention of designing a portal specifically tailored for the mass market. To date this has never been done. Yes, there have been companies that tried to repurpose a military portal to the Jeep market, but we felt that the execution left plenty to be desired. In short, we knew we could succeed where others have not, and the reasons others have not succeeded is a long list including, too much lift, no wheel speed sensors, wrong gear ratio, too wide of a package, wrong knuckle configuration, and the list can go on.

When we integrated a unit bearing into our race portal we did so with very clear intentions. Unit bearings are a critical component to every OEM application and while it made our Race Portal very serviceable, our intention all along was to take this same design, scale it back, change a few processes, and produce a bolt-on portal for the mass market. In order for a portal to be successful in a bolt-on application it has to be compatible with OEM sensors. The unit bearing is the logical solution.

The first application we wanted to tackle was the Jeep for a number of reasons. We are Jeep people at heart. The whole reason 74 Weld exists is because of the build-up and repair of a well-used Jeep. The Jeep Wrangler is supported by a massive aftermarket, so we knew that if we developed a solid product for the JK and JL/JT it would be successful.

In late 2021 we started building prototypes and by the beginning of 2022 we had running vehicles driving around on a bolt-on Jeep Portal. This portal does everything we sought out to accomplish. It lifts the vehicle, allowing you to run larger tires. It widens the vehicle, giving it a more stable stance. The portal gearing compensates for the larger tires and reduces the stress on the axleshafts, differentials, driveshafts, transfer case, transmission and engine. It retains the factory suspension and steering geometry while maintaining the factory ride and handling characteristics which are far superior to that of a lift. But most of all, the 74 Weld Jeep Portal gives you unmatched ground clearance under the axles where it matters most off-road. The Jeep Portals are a culmination of over a decade of dedication and engineering. We believe it’s the best way to lift a vehicle and the ultimate “suspension kit” to accommodate larger tires. Stop lifting your suspension and start lifting your axles.