Length: 22:01
Created: October 26, 2017
[0:00] Hello everyone. Tyler here from SuperATV, along with our leading portal engineer, Justin. Today we’re gonna talk about SuperATV’s GDP Gen 2 Portals.
So, as you saw if you’ve been keeping up with our Facebook page, we’ve been doing a lot of videos and posts about our new portals that we’ve released. We’re very excited about this upgrade we’ve made and figured we’d tune in live and show you a little bit more in person of the changes we’ve made while talking to Justin, who, like I said, is the lead engineer of all this. We’ll explain a little bit why we went with the changes we did and to talk about our continuous improvement on the products we do here at SuperATV.
[1:31] I also want to mention this week through Sunday we have a sale going on on all our portals for many makes and models. $150 off. So if you’re in the market right now for some portals before the holiday season, be sure to get online and get a hold of that special while you can.
[1:48] We’re gonna start off at this end and work our way over, talking about these new parts. As you can see here, just for future reference, everything on the left is Gen 1 and on the right is Gen 2. So Justin, let’s go ahead and start with the output shafts here. Explain how much bigger they are and why we needed to make that product better.
[2:11] Justin: Sure, Tyler. We really did take the best portal on the market and make it even better with Gen 2, and I’m really happy with the changes that we made. The biggest change, I think, is the output shaft. We went with a 30% larger shaft. You can see how much bigger it really is. And this thing is really strong. We actually hooked it up to our axle breaker and we couldn’t break it, so we’re really proud about that.
With this output shaft, we took the tapered washer that you Gen 1 guys know about and incorporated it into the shaft and the hub. So now we have a self-aligning hub, which is much stronger than the Gen 1.
Tyler: So when you talk about that, the guys who have Gen 1, this tapered washer kind of helped to align everything.
Justin: Right. This helped align it on the shaft, so we decided to incorporate that into our new hubs.
Tyler: So this kind of caused a little bit of room where you could have an install there if you don’t do it correctly, if you had the tapered wrong or something. We’re always trying to innovate and make it easier for the install while making things stronger and better, and this was one way we did that—got rid of this and incorporated it into this hub so it centers up on itself.
Justin: Right. The less parts, the easier the install, the easier the design itself.
[3:32] We’ll move over to the hubs. You can tell a noticeable difference. We put ribs in the hub, extremely strong. The hub itself is thicker than Gen 1 and that’s pretty much it. That’s all we’ve done with the hubs. We added the taper, we added the larger splines, and we thickened it up, adding the ribs.
[3:54] Tyler: And another thing to note on all of our portals—these holes. Tell us a little bit about why there are so many holes in here. What does that allow us to do that definitely sets us apart from any other?
Justin: So all of these holes are set up for all the major lug patterns. So if you have a Polaris, you can run a Can-Am wheel if you want. We have Honda, Kawasaki, Can-Am, and Polaris on there.
Tyler: Yep. I know a lot of guys see it online all the time, there’s always deals for wheels, but sometimes they’re only a Can-Am bolt pattern or a Polaris bolt pattern. With this, say you have this installed on a Kawasaki Teryx, you can go to a Polaris wheel if you like the style of that wheel. So that kind of changes the game and gives you pretty much endless options for wheels because, as we all know, looking for wheels, sometimes there’s this awesome wheel over there but it only has a particular bolt pattern and I can’t put it on my machine. So this allows you to put those studs anywhere you want to accommodate for that lug pattern you have on that wheel, so that’s pretty cool.
Justin: It really allows you to set your machine apart and customize it even further.
[4:57] So with all these upgrades, we had no choice but to add this castle nut. We went 40% larger on the castle nut.
Tyler: That’s serious. I mean, that is a big-time difference there. That’s impressive!
Justin: And along with that, you have the cotter pins. We went with the 1/8″ for Gen 1, bumped it up to 3/16″. You shouldn’t have any problem with those.
[5:40] Tyler: And the lids here, they look a little bit different to me. Tell me about what changes we made here.
Justin: With Gen 1, we were a little concerned with weight, so we added some honeycomb features. We ended up deciding to go with the fully solid lids for obviously a lot better strength.
Tyler: Strength and even machining purposes, makes this easier so we can get our products out the door quicker.
Justin: And not only the honeycombs. We actually added a bigger thrust bearing, too, to accommodate that bigger shaft.
Tyler: You can see the difference there in Gen 2. Always continuing to improve our products. I’ve seen a lot of comments from guys that just bought Gen 1 or has had them awhile and are now seeing that we’re coming out with Gen 2. That’s just the nature of the beast here at SuperATV. We’re continuously trying to bring new, innovative, better beefed-up products to the market. We had to start somewhere.
We see the comments from the guys, “Can I turn my Gen 1 in for Gen 2?” No, come on, guys. When a car manufacturer comes out with a new vehicle the next year, they’re not gonna let you turn in that vehicle for the new model. That’s just how it works, but just know that we didn’t make all these changes because the Gen 1 was bad.
You’re gonna see a video we’ll post tomorrow where I plum buried a Teryx in the mud and really put some serious strain on this machine—the portals, the big tires, and had zero issues. It’s incredible what they’re capable of. And this just goes to show the innovation that we’re always doing here at the shop to bring you guys even better products. That’s some serious upgrades and some serious beef for the guys that are super hardcore on their rides. I just wanted to point that out.
[7:25] Justin: I wanted to mention that we didn’t leave you Gen 1 guys behind. We still have a way that you can convert your Gen 1 to your Gen 2. All the features that come with Gen 2, you can have with Gen 1 with our converter kit that’s coming out here soon.
Tyler: That’s a very valid point, I’m glad you brought that up. We’ve also got some questions that we saw from our other videos. We’re gonna go through some frequently asked questions and answer those for you guys, but that is a very good point. We didn’t leave behind the guys that have Gen 1. We will have a conversion kit that will allow you to retrofit these newer parts on your old boxes and be able to really go out there and push the limits, take it to the next level. If you’re running a 36″ now you can go up to a 40″ tire with confidence. I have to say that’s very good.
[8:16] Justin: So on to the caliper mount plates. We used to have these aluminum caliper mount plates, but we decided to bump it up to steel and go even thicker. We had a few things where rocks or some junk would get caught up in the wheel and the caliper, so we really think this is gonna take care of that problem.
[8:42] Tyler: I have Lane here asking, can the Gen 2 portal lid be put on a Gen 1?
Justin: The lid, everything you see here with the new parts, will be in the conversion kit.
[8:58] Tyler: Moving on, that basically covers what we’ve done with this new Gen 2 GDP Portal Gear Lift. Now we’re gonna move on to some questions I’m seeing on some posts from this week. I’ve seen some questions come about more than once so being that we have Justin here, he can better enlighten us on these.
[9:15] So the first question, we get a lot of questions asking about venting. Why isn’t there a vent on top of our portals to let out heat or pressure buildup? Why isn’t there one of those?
Justin: You now, when we first started designing these and testing prototypes, we actually had a vent system on the portal box. We found out that it was being torn off most often. It was turning into a failure point where water and junk can get in, and honestly we tested the pressure of these boxes. We filled them up with air, let them sit overnight. We didn’t have any leaking or pressure loss. You should know we also run these things down the road at 60 or 70 MPH to test the temperature and there’s not a big temperature difference. It’s really not building up a whole lot of pressure when you’re riding.
Tyler: And to further say that, we’re constantly always R&Ding our product as well. We’re making changes, we’re always out there testing. We always try to find other people in different regions of the country to test them. For instance, Ross Pilgreen has been running some portals for a long time, since the beginning. He ran them at King of the Hammers. Hammers offers really high-speed desert racing mixed up with rocks, and he saw zero issues with heat buildup or pressure buildup that resorted to anything.
Like I said, we’re always testing here. We’ve done extensive testing, road riding around here. Putting them on a RZR, keeping them up to 60 or 70 MPH. Taking heat guns with us and checking temperatures and really figuring out our products. We don’t just build a product and hope it works. There are extensive hours that go into testing with all of these products, and this is one product that we have spent a lot of time with because we’re very proud of this product. It’s incredible what you can do with a machine.
We kind of started this business off of lift kits and stuff, and this is like a new age-style lift kit, giving your machine four or six inches of lift to pull your whole machine up. It’s what allows you to run the 36″ to 40″ tires. I mean, that’s unheard of. A machine comes with 29″ tires. You can put this on your machine and run a 40″ tire and it still feels like you have close to a stock tire! It’s pretty incredible what it allows you to do.
[11:32] Moving on to the next question. How much overall width is added when we put a set of portals on?
Justin: These portals will add four inches per side, so it’ll make your machine about eight inches wider. I’ve ridden these things with portals on and they are so stable. You won’t have any worries about that.
Tyler: Me and Justin have gone out quite a bit, doing some riding and testing. Eight inches might sound like quite a bit but at the end of the day, it’s really not. A lot of these trails, going around to different off-road parks, everything is pretty wide machine friendly. A lot of parks allow Jeeps and whatnot. You’re still not up to anything like that. I will say that adding width does hurt your turning radius a little bit, but not enough to make that big a difference in return of what you’re getting with this. So four inches per side, and that goes for both the four-inch and the six-inch portals.
[12:30] Are we able to run our stock axles if we can’t quite budget getting a new set of Rhino Axles?
Justin: That’s actually one of the biggest benefits of running portals. You can run your stock axles and you don’t have to worry about all the stress on the axles. So you can run a stock axle and it should hold up.
Tyler: And during testing, we tested that, too. We do have a full line of axles that we offer at SuperATV, but we also like to check the compatibility with factory stuff and whatnot. So we did put a lot of time with factory axles and I have to say, I did a lot of the testing with factory axles, and I have never broken one. That’s a big selling point that I pitch to guys. Even with factory axles, these portals take all that stress off your axle driveline and put it in the box. It’s pretty incredible.
I just can’t say enough good things about portals—not just trying to sell them to you, but I am honestly a true fan of how these portals make a machine stronger and make them more capable with bigger tires. More ground clearance equals bigger rock ledges to crawl up and over. Bigger rock crawls and everything you can do. It’s definitely the ticket if you’re into any kind of technical rock crawling or you just want to get that lower gear for playing in the mud and that sort of thing. It does kill your high speed a little bit. How does that work?
[13:55] Justin: Yeah, as far as tire size goes, 29″ tires usually goes up to about 36″ or 37″.
Tyler: So when you have that size tire, it’s still like you have a 29″ tire. Your machine still feels that heavy with that big tire. Pretty cool.
[14:16] And I just want to point out that we are constantly working on new fitments, we see a lot of comments about this. We’re always messing with Polaris or Can-Am and we’re never giving the Pioneer guys or the Teryx guys enough love. We are always working on all makes and models but of course, we look at the numbers online. Who’s selling the most machines? Where are all the sales going and what are the most popular machines out there? We’re obviously going to work on those first and then come down.
We have portals for both UTVs and ATVs but I just want to point out that we stop with the popular models first then work our way down. I’ve seen a couple different questions on Arctic Cat and different things, and it goes back to numbers, but feel free to comment and ask, when are you going to come out with this? We’ll submit it to our engineers or our project managers and put those requests in and maybe get them pushed up the line quicker if there is a high demand.
We never know, other than doing our research online and seeing what sells best, and that’s where we start. I just want to point out that’s why it seems like we’re always favoring Can-Am and Polaris, because they’re really the top sellers and inevitably that’s who we want to sell to. We don’t want to neglect the people that have the machines that don’t sell as good because we still do have a full line of products for that machine, it just takes awhile through that trickle-down effect to get to that particular model but more than likely, we’ll get to that machine if it’s one of the top ten ATVs or UTVs on the market. We can pretty much ensure that we’ll get to it sooner or later.
Justin: The more interest you guys show on Facebook or wherever, the more information we get that you guys are interested, the higher it’s going to go on our priority list.
[15:58] Tyler: I think that pretty well wraps it up. Let’s look through the questions here and see if there’s anything else.
[16:14] Yeah, the warranty. I’m not 100% on that.
Justin: We’re not really versed in the warranty. I’m not a sales guy.
Tyler: I’m pretty sure it’s a one-year warranty, or it might be a lifetime on some of the different components. But at the end of the day, as most of you know from talking to us, just give us a call and if the part had a good reason to break or you’re having an issue, we’re a true stand-up company and we’ll help you out. We’re not gonna leave someone stranded on the trail.
I hate to say that I don’t know exactly what that warranty is but I can assure you, we have tons of customer service people right on the other side of this wall ready to take your call. They will help you out with anything you need. That is one of the biggest things we take pride in here at SuperATV is customer satisfaction. Like I said, if you have issues with any of this, we’re more than likely going to take care of you hassle free. Send us pictures, show us your issue. We’ll get with our engineers and if it’s a true issue that happens frequently we’re going to address it.
[17:25] I believe with Gen 2, it’s obviously the next generation. We saw a few little hiccups with Gen 1. We capitalized on those, made them better, and now we’re onto Gen 2. We’ve had a good amount of time with these portals. We really know where the weak points were and that’s why we beefed it up and made this product better. I foresee not seeing many warranty claims with this new setup because we’ve put a lot of research and homework and R&D time into this to bring you the best portal gear lift on the market, hands down.
[18:13] Here’s a question—how about gear boxes for racing? As I mentioned, we have a few that have ran King of the Hammers and a couple different styles of cross-country races. They do good, the only thing I would say, coming from me personally, I would say the racers get a little hesitant with the extra weight and leverage, and killing the high speed of your machine.
That’s going to vary on the style of racing you’re doing but sure, if you want to run portals, you can. They’re going to withstand that beating. It just comes down to, when you want to race, every guy wants to be light and fast. So adding this much weight on each corner to race might not sound practical to too many people, but like I said, Ross dang near got a top ten. He had a fuel pump issue in King of the Hammers. He ran it with portals, running 35s.
So yes, to answer the question, we’re confident that they’re gonna hold up to the abuse of high speeds and racing for sure. It just comes down to the preference and what kind of racing you’re doing, I guess.
[19:36] Someone asked about leaking issues. I have seen quite a few of the Gen 1s have leaking issues. We changed our gaskets, got all that addressed. Honestly, did we make any serious changes to this? Because it seemed like not a very high number of leaky ones. This seemed to be like when we sell thousands of portals a month, every now and again there happens to be one that might have had a gasket that was made wrong or was a little bit off when bolted together.
Justin: There have been a few portals go out where the seals and the gaskets weren’t aligned, and that’s probably what caused initial leaking. We have changed the material of the seal on the gasket, so that’s another thing we’re improving.
Tyler: Seeing some guys comment about heat buildup and why we should have vents for that—that has nothing to do with why your gasket is leaking. I’m 100% confident in telling you that we’ve done the tests and that adding a vent is not gonna stop that leaking. I would say it was a bad seal or installed correctly, where the seal wasn’t happy. In the grand scheme, there really haven’t been a ton of warranty issues.
Justin: Like I said before, we pumped this thing up with 20-30 pounds of pressure—more than you would ever see—and then left it overnight, and it didn’t drop.
Tyler: Feel free to comment like you are and chime in and we’ll answer those questions.
[21:19] Seems like those were some of the biggest questions we had on there. I think we’ve commented on everything.
Like I said, once again, we have a sale going on right now until Sunday. $150 off. Be sure to take advantage of that if you want to get in on these new Gen 2 portals. Otherwise, feel free to comment and post some pictures of your machines, let us see those portals you have on there. If there are any other questions that you have, comment. I’ll keep an eye on this throughout the day and we’ll try to answer those questions in a timely manner.
