When people compare portal axles, one of the first specifications they ask about is portal width.
It's a logical question, but it's also the wrong one.
In our latest video, Quinn breaks down why the width of the portal box itself tells you very little about how wide your vehicle will actually be once everything is installed. Instead, the measurement that matters is your vehicle's overall width: outside of tire to outside of tire.
Every Portal Has Packaging Constraints
No matter who builds it, every portal has to package the same basic components:
- Gears
- Bearings
- A housing strong enough to support both
- Brakes
- A wheel
Those components aren't optional. The challenge isn't simply making the portal narrower. It's packaging everything together without compromising strength, durability, or vehicle performance.
Why We Replace the Entire Upright
This is where our design philosophy separates itself.
Instead of bolting a portal onto the factory knuckle using a backer plate, every 74Weld portal replaces the entire upright. That allows us to integrate the bearing package directly into the knuckle, eliminating unnecessary stack-up and reducing overall package width.
It's a more difficult approach. It requires large 5-axis machining centers, significantly more engineering, and much more complex manufacturing.
But we believe it's the right way to build a portal.
A Narrower Portal Doesn't Always Make a Narrower Vehicle
Here's where things get interesting.
Even if someone builds a physically narrower portal box, that doesn't automatically make the vehicle narrower.
The brakes still have to fit.
Move the wheel mounting surface inward too far and you quickly run into brake caliper clearance issues. The solution is usually a wheel with more negative offset—which pushes the tire back outward.
The result?
A portal that's technically narrower but produces a wider vehicle overall.
The Wheel Matters Just As Much
That's why we developed our own forged wheels alongside our portal systems.
Rather than treating wheels as an afterthought, we engineered them to work with our brake package and portal design. By controlling the entire system, we're able to optimize scrub radius, maintain proper steering geometry, and minimize overall vehicle width.
It's not about making one individual component look good on a spec sheet.
It's about optimizing the complete package.
Ask Better Questions
When you're shopping for portals, don't ask:
"How wide is the portal?"
Ask:
"What is the outside-of-tire to outside-of-tire width once everything is installed?"
That's the measurement that determines how your vehicle fits through obstacles, how it steers, and how it performs on the trail.
The rocks don't care how wide your portal box is.
They care how wide your vehicle is.
Watch the Full Video
This topic has far more nuance than can fit into a blog post. In the video, Quinn walks through the engineering decisions, packaging constraints, wheel offsets, brake clearance, and design philosophy that allow us to build what we believe is the narrowest overall portal package in the industry.
