Long Arms + Portals?

[Zonearc]

I know the mud guys do it all the time, but I'm not interested in that style of wheeling. What I'm building for is an "jack of all trades" build that can handle rocks and trail. I like the added travel with long arms, and the gear reduction with portals for 36-37" tires. My thought is, couldn't you do both and then use a wheel with a negative offset to suck it in a bit so it's not unreasonable? If so, has anyone built something like this and have pictures and measurements to share?
I run Jeeps so I'm use to 80-84" width with tons and 13.5" wide tires, so if its less than that it would feel stable and wide like I'm use to, and I don't run ATV trails. But I also don't want it looking insanely goofy either.

Thoughts?

Edit: This picture here using HCR's long arm kit is the only one I can find on this. It has portals and long arms. They pulled off the portals for the pictures on their website, but clearly they run it with portals when it's not picture time:

 

[oneal]

This gentleman below done just that and it looks bada$$. Really comes down to your personal needs and desires.
The higher off the ground means less center of gravity. If it is going to be a show machine the sky is the limit.
I installed a 5" Gorilla lift on a 900 Ranger and hated it. We rode Windrock, Hatfield, and Brimstone back then and all have many offcambers. It helped in the deepest mud holes but was the sole reason I ended up on my side and even upside down once.


BTW- The machine in your picture looks awesome.

Post in thread 'Ranger XD 1500 - Biggest Tires Stock'

Jul 25, 2024

Phase 2 of my build is complete. 8” GDP Portals, PFAB balljoint delete, 24” JTX Forged Wheels, 44” System 3 XT400W’s!

• Kalon T

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You can fit 35's comfortably with forward arms if that is enough for you. I do wish I had low range but I felt that way with stock tires.

 

[Zonearc]

The really big one in the pictures you shared is on 8" portals and 44" tires. My build would be 37" max, meaning I could get away with 4" portals, so it would have a lower COG. But I get it, you're still up there. Then again, with the width that should help. I mean, if I get to 72" wide, that's Jeep width with a cab that weighs less than a Jeep. I'm hoping that helps.

My issue with 35s on stock or 2" lift is that I still haven't solved for the XD 1500's weak travel. 12 travel isn't much and I don't think that'll help me at moab or Rubicon much?

 

[oneal]

Ah, I understand now. Your going for the serious flex.
This will be an expensive but very interesting build to watch. 30% reduction should relieve enough strain on the drive line to hopefully keep 37's from gernading the 3rd members. Between the portals and IDS will give you clean center clearance.
Keep us posted

 

[Andy]

Im going to chime in here. A box welded a-arm will be the strongest. We have personal tested this in our Race shop and on the track. The only one we know of at a retail level is Thumper Fab. They did a really nice job on them all tig welded. A lot of the issues we encountered building the suspension on the 1500 is the shock angle to get the most travel as posable. We built our Ranger to go wide open across rough train, so we wanted low clearance to keep our top speed with the most wheel travel we could get. We ended up at 35in tires with 19in ground clearance and around 17in of wheel travel. If you want the best ride you can get make sure your shocks are by pass with dual rate you have to custom build these there is nothing on the retail market. Here's a few pictures of full cycle on ours checking for clearance. Lowest, Ride-Hight and Full Extension. For performance we added the RPM header and exhaust unlocked the ECU changed throttle curve. The ECU/TCM not my area we have a Motec wire engineer guy on staff and he's got this thing dialed.

 

[Zonearc]

Im going to chime in here. A box welded a-arm will be the strongest. We have personal tested this in our Race shop and on the track. The only one we know of at a retail level is Thumper Fab. They did a really nice job on them all tig welded. A lot of the issues we encountered building the suspension on the 1500 is the shock angle to get the most travel as posable. We built our Ranger to go wide open across rough train, so we wanted low clearance to keep our top speed with the most wheel travel we could get. We ended up at 35in tires with 19in ground clearance and around 17in of wheel travel. If you want the best ride you can get make sure your shocks are by pass with dual rate you have to custom build these there is nothing on the retail market. Here's a few pictures of full cycle on ours checking for clearance. Lowest, Ride-Hight and Full Extension. For performance we added the RPM header and exhaust unlocked the ECU changed throttle curve. The ECU/TCM not my area we have a Motec wire engineer guy on staff and he's got this thing dialed.

I've fabricated and built things for a long time, just not on UTVs. It doesn't scare me to start with a set of long arms, and then modify them and the upper mounts to adjust shock angle, etc. I also love the idea of building a custom set of shocks for this so they're valved properly for it ... correcting rebound to ensure the front axle flexes with minimal speed, which I'm not seeing a lot of when I watch all the videos of people slow crawling the 1500 (the front shocks look stiff as balls, or people are leaving their sway bars connected).

 

[Andy]

Awesome can't wait to see it. We went through several springs and re-valeved mutable times. The biggest challenges were total weight of the rig to the shock angle and not have it to stiff with still achieving ride hight. Once we achieved this then we could focus on rebound and compression valving. Have any questions during your build just ask we are not a retailer or sell anything, or builds are just for our race program but I don't mind helping we have a full fab shop and have been build off road race trucks for years.