Rock crawling increases in popularity with every passing year, challenging mudding and sand racing for off-road supremacy. Thanks to growing interest, you see more and more people loading up their four-seaters with their kids or friends.
If you plan on bringing your crew along for a rock-crawling adventure, you should consider upgrading your machine with portals. “But,” you say, “I thought portals were for mudding?” Well, that’s not wrong, but they have a lot of benefits for rock crawling too. Your passengers will thank you after you add GDP Portals to your machine.
But how exactly will portals improve you and your passengers’ rock-crawling experience? Read on to learn how the benefits of a portal gear lift for rock crawling.
Portals offer a ton of advantages for your machine. Gear reduction, improved torque, and bigger tires are often cited as the top benefits. And that’s true! But portals offer even more benefits for rock crawling in four-seaters.
Your tires are the first thing to contact the obstacle in front of you. A portal gear lift will actually give you the torque you need to dominate the rough terrain. That means you’ll spend less time trying to navigate around big obstacles. Instead, you can face them head-on.
When you don’t have to back down, reverse, and change direction all the time, that makes for an easier ride. Portals help make your route more direct and keep you from jostling your passengers around as often.
All portals increase your rig’s width by several inches. In general, a wider stance improves stability, especially when it comes to curves or turning. That means your machine is less likely to flip on rough terrain or steep inclines.
That added stability will help you feel more secure when you’re hitting the rocks with passengers. Nobody likes a rollover incident, but it can be especially bad when passengers are involved. Portals can improve stability and help you avoid tough situations.
This one may be a little more obvious, but you can’t overemphasize the benefits of clearance when rock crawling. Improved clearance lets you take on larger obstacles, which means your passengers get a less herky-jerky ride.
If you know you can take on large boulders with confidence, you don’t have to constantly reroute to avoid them. Your passengers will appreciate fewer twists and turns on their rocky ride.
The added height keeps rocks and logs from scraping your rig’s undercarriage too. It may not seem so bad to you as the driver, but the bumping and scraping on the bottom of the machine can be a bit more…worrisome to passengers, to say the least.
Unlike other types of lifts, GDP Portals don’t put added stress on your drivetrain. Instead, they can actually relieve it! They transfer the force of the engine directly to the tire. That means less stress on the axles, differential, drive shaft, and transmission.
You’ll be able to keep exploring rocky off-road paths for years to come—with fewer breakdowns. That’s good news for you and all the buddies you’ve got in the second row (they don’t want to walk home either).
We’ve been making GPD Portals since 2018 and we’ve perfected the science of making them better than any other lift. And we’re not done—if we find a better, stronger, or more cost-effective way to do something, we will.
We offer three different lift heights: 8”, 6”, and 4”. For rock crawling, you may want to go with 6” or 4” portals since a lower center of gravity will keep your rig more stable. And a comfortable ride for you and your passengers is all about stability.
As far as gear reduction goes, we’ve got 70%, 60%, 45%, 30%, or 15% options to choose from. Whatever’s right for your tire size, lift height, and ride style—we’ve got a portal.
Not sure what gear reduction you need for your tires? Use our handy tool to find out.
Still want to know more about portals before you add them to your four-seat UTV? Don’t worry. We’ve written a ton about these awesome upgrades over the years, so you can rely on the Off-Road Atlas to answer all your burning questions.
Portals will make rock crawling more fun for you and your passengers. If you want to take the whole family or all your buddies for a rock-crawling excursion, you need a GDP Portal Gear Lift from SuperATV.
