GDP Portal Gear Lifts are awesome and completely change the way you ride. But, if you’ve never heard of them before you might be feeling a little lost. Whether you’re coming in blind or if you’ve had a set for year, this list will answer all your the questions you have (and some you didn’t think to ask).
GDP Portal Gear Lifts give you a lift and a gear reduction in one kit. They’re different from standard suspension lifts because they lift your machine at the hub instead of at the shock—everything gets lifted from the ball joints to the A-arms and frame. A portal gear lift kit is made up of 4 portal boxes that replace your stock hub. They use gears in the box to lower your axle line and provide a gear reduction.
The gear reduction lets you turn bigger, heavier tires and lowers the strain on your drivetrain.
Whether you get cast or billet is a matter of personal preference. Billet is much stronger and has a nice machine-finish look. Our cast aluminum housings are cheaper and designed to be strong enough to handle high-torque and hard riding as well. Either way, you’re getting the exact same components and performance, just with different housing materials.
We offer 15%, 30%, and 45% gear reductions for GDP Portal Gear Lifts. You can get 15% and 30% reductions in our 4” portals, 30% and 45% in our 6” portals, and 45% in our 8” portals.
No. Each housing is designed for a specific gear reduction. They’re so different that you won’t even be able to assemble the boxes or make the gears mate if you change gear reduction.
Use 80W-90 gear oil. For most people, non-synthetic gear oil is good enough. If you plan on riding in sub-zero temperature you’ll want to shell out for synthetic oil. You can find either at your local auto parts store.
You need approximately 1 qt or less to fill an entire set of portals regardless of your size or gear ratio. Fill each box to just below the fill hole. The amount in each box will vary slightly depending on your specific kit.
We recommend changing your gear oil at least annually, but you should check it regularly. If you ride in mud or water, you need to check your oil after every ride and change it immediately if it’s milky or discolored. If mud or water has gotten into your box, it can corrode bearings and gears over time. Discoloration can also indicate potential damage to your seals or gaskets.
Checking your oil before every ride to make sure you’ve still got enough is a good idea. If you’re losing oil, that’s another sign that you’ve damaged a seal somewhere. And you don’t want to ride with a damaged seal.
Internal bearings should be inspected annually for damage and corrosion. That means opening up your box, getting a good look at each one, and making sure your internals are clean. If there’s rust or damage, it’s time to replace them. We sell complete bearing and seal kits for all our portals.
If you see discoloration when you’re checking your oil, that’s a sign that you should inspect and clean your bearings as well.
Leaving bearings unchanged when contaminated with anything other than oil can lead to major damage to the bearing, gears, and box itself.
If you keep a good eye on your oil and make sure you keep things clean, your annual maintenance cost should equal the price for a quart of 80W-90 gear oil, or less than $15. Most people who check and change their oil never have to change a bearing or seal. Even if you replace a bearing or two over the course of a few years, you’re looking at around $40 a year on average.
Gen 1, Gen 2, and Gen 3 refer to the different versions of GDP Portal Gear Lifts. When we make a major design change, we also change the name. Gen 3 has billet and cast aluminum housing options, a stronger housing design, the option to choose your gear reduction, stronger gear materials, and sealed drive gears along with other changes.
Gen 2 had a much bigger output shaft than Gen 1 along with stronger caliper mounts, lids, and rotor hub. All which carried forward and was improved for Gen 3.
Gen 1 was the original GDP Portal Gear Lift.
We only sell Gen 3 portals currently and we’ve only ever sold the newest gen portals that we produce.
Gen 1 portals were sold before October 2017. They have a smaller output shaft (the splined section has a much smaller diameter than the smooth section of the shaft) and they use a tapered washer behind the hubs.
Gen 2 portals were sold between October 2017 and January 2019 and they use a large output shaft (the splined section has almost the same diameter as the smooth section of the shaft) and there is no marking on the housing to indicate gear reduction.
Gen 3 portals have been sold since January 2019. They use the same large shaft as Gen 2 but also has an engraved 15, 30, or 45 by the drain plug and under the caliper mounting location. They also have a 3-bolt cap instead of a 4-bolt cap like Gen 1 and 2, and they use diff-style drain plugs with O-ring seals. GDP 8” Portal Gear Lifts and billet aluminum portals are all Gen 3.
If you’re unsure of what you have, give us a call at 855-743-3427.
Every machine is different but your CV cup will not touch the back of the box. Can-Am vehicles in particular leave a larger gap between the back of the box and the CV cup. This is normal and will not affect performance or longevity.
We sell conversion kits to make any set of portals compatible with a variety of UTVs and ATVs. Basically, if we sell a portal for a certain vehicle on SuperATV.com, we can sell you a conversion kit to make whatever portals you have fit that certain vehicle.
What you need depends on what you’re converting from and what you’re converting too. A RZR to another RZR? Probably just need new backing plates. A Ranger to an X3? You’re gonna need a bit more to make that work.
Give us a call at 855-743-3427 to get the one you need.
Yes! This is the best part about portal gear lifts—the ability to lift, and lift again! Because the lift is in the hub, it doesn’t change your suspension geometry. Just install your lift and your portals at the same time and you’ll be in the barrel club.
We sell conversion kits to upgrade 4” Gen 1 portals to Gen 2 only. We do not offer conversion kits for any other lift size or generation.
If it breaks and it’s our fault, we’ll take care of it. If it breaks and it’s your fault, you’ll take care of it, but we’ll do our best to get you up and running again.
This is outlined in our limited lifetime warranty section on every GDP Portal Gear Lift page. Basically, we don’t cover wear items like bearings, seals, and gaskets, and it’s up to our discretion to decide if your portals were neglected or abused. Examples of this would be not putting oil in your boxes or putting grease instead of oil. If you try to use your portal for something other than riding like some kind of weird power take-off and it breaks, we might not cover that.
Normal maintenance and servicing won’t void your warranty even if you decide to buy matching seals from an auto parts store instead of buying them from us. Disassembling it for a deep clean is also OK—just make sure you get it put back together properly. And don’t replace the gears with other gears. We spent a lot of time and effort making them as perfect as possible. Using someone else’s gears is a bad idea.
Keep your usage and repairs within the scope of the portal gear lift’s intended function, and you won’t have any trouble if you need to warranty.
We love keeping our portals running, and we’re super easy to work with. Give us a call at 855-743-3427 if you have any issue with your GDP Portals.
The unique rear wheel hub on the Outlander and Commander make it impossible to mount our portal gear boxes. We include rear trailing arms for those vehicles to provide a robust and secure mounting location.
Although we estimate a 10 hour install time for the average person, the individual steps to complete installation are relatively simple. It’s not as hard as cracking open a transmission and changing gears, but it’s tougher than changing a diff. We have detailed, full-color instructions as well as a helpful installation video to make it as easy as possible.
We’re here to help you with any part of your installation. Just give us a call at 855-743-3427.
We’ve sold thousands of GDP Portal Gear Lifts and made hundreds of thousands of weekends better. What makes ours the most used portal gear lifts in the UTV/ATV industry?
Here’s what we’ve got that no one else does:
Still need a little help getting exactly what you need? We’ve got a dedicated team just for portal support. Give us a call at 855-743-3427 so we can get the perfect set of portals in your hands today.
20 Comments
Awesome , Great Info , Well Documented . They Look Great. When I Decide to change over to a Side by side , I will definitely Buy me a set of Portals . I been watching these closely through Slikrok Productions as they give Great Reviews of these Portals. When I make the change of my ride , I’m going with theses.
Thanks for the feedback, John! We can’t wait to have you as a customer! SuperATV’s GDP Portals are definitely the best of the best!
I have a 16 high lifter edition ranger so will 4 inch portal run 33 bkt wit just the 4 inch portal lift
Thanks for reading! Unfortunately, you won’t be able to only run 4″ portals with that tire setup. Take a look at the chart at the bottom of this listing to see what you need: https://www.superatv.com/polaris-ranger-900-4-inch-portal-gear-lift-g3 Feel free to give us a call if you have any other questions, 855-743-3427.
I I already have the 6” lift installed, if I buy portals will everything bolt up in the rear trailing arms on the portals
Hey Alex, thanks for reading! To answer your question, everything should bolt up just fine but it will depend some on the machine. Feel free to give us a call at 855-743-3427. We’ve got a team dedicated to portal support that will be able to get you squared away.
4 inch portal+ 8 inch lift, on ranger, what about long enough brake lines?
Hi Jeff, we unfortunately do not offer an 8″ lift kit for the Ranger. However, all of our lift kits and portal gear lifts (like 8″ portals) come with brake lines. Thanks for the support!
I have 6″ portals on a side by side I own now that I use for mudding, I am about to purchase a Can Am X3 that I want to use for multiple purposes. I would like to leave the Can Am basically stock, besides a portal lift so I can ride trails, dunes, rock climb, and still do some mudding, mud riding and trails would most likely be the majority of what I would do more than the others. I plan to run different size tires and types for the different riding, with 37’s probably being the largest tire I run and that will be for mud. What would be a good all around portal size, and more importantly an all around portal gear ratio to be suitable for all types of riding like this and not lose much in speed for when I want to open it up? Will portals be stable if I decided to do some donuts here and there? Thank you
Hey Brandon! It’s all going to depend on tire size as far as speed and reduction, but it sounds like your best bet would be 4″ boxes with a 30% reduction. You’ll also be 8″ wider overall after adding the portals, so depending on the tire size used during the donuts, you should be about as stable as stock. Thanks for checking in!
I’m definately interested in adding 4″ 30% portals to my 2021 RZR 570. But I’m concerned about how much they will widen track width. Trail stance and fitment in my toyhauler are a concern. How much will they add overall (both sides) to the track width?
Thanks.
Sean
Hey Sean! Adding 4″ portals to your RZR 570 will give you around 8″ overall added width. We appreciate you checking in with us and for the support!
If i break one portal how do i order just one portal to replace it
Hey Cody. Give us a call at 855-743-3427 and we’ll help you get set up. Thanks for checking in!
I’m a retired underground miner. I see various problems. I have one that exploded, it shoved idler out front. I’ve designed and built some of the extreme machines known to man.i believe you have a good product ,but I can make it almost indestructible. I’ll not post problems I see inthis forum. Like I said it’s a good product but I can make it better.
I have a portal that has had an oil leak forever. I disassembled it and found a factory repair. Has Crack from repair and area is really thin. Can repair myself but would rather get case replaced, can easily see where small section was replaced from the inside.
Hey Thomas, give us a call at 855-743-3427 and we’ll see what we can do. Our GDP portals come with a limited lifetime warranty for the original purchaser, so we might be able to help you out if there’s a factory defect. It’s definitely worth a shot. In reference to your other comment, we don’t usually work with folks outside the company for product development. But if you want to work for us, we often post engineering positions: https://www.superatv.com/careers.
I have 4″ gen1 portals on my 2014 Polaris Ranger 900XP. I’ve found some 2020 Gen 3 6″ portals. Will my 4″ gen1 backing plates work with the new gen 3 6″ portals?
I just got a 2018 RZR 1000 highlifter and it has the 4″ portals on it. One side on the rear is making lost of noise popping and all kinds of stuff . Would the bearings being bad cause that kind of noise or should i prepair for something more to be wrong with it? I do not know the history on it.
Hey Crystal, unfortunately there’s probably more than a bad bearing making all that noise. You need to drain the oil and open it up to see what’s going on. Odds are there’s some serious internal damage. When you narrow it down, give us a call at 855-743-3427, and we’ll help you get it up and running again. You can buy individual gears from us over the phone, and we also sell bearing and seal kits directly on the website: https://www.superatv.com/4-inch-portal-gear-lift-seal-and-bearing-rebuild-kit
I’m crossing my fingers for you that it’s not as bad as it sounds.