Axletech is an international company with a long heritage of building military and heavy equipment drive axles. In fact they are a decedent of Rockwell, maker of the famed Rockwell 2 1/2-ton military axle. A group of Axletech marketing and engineer people thought the company could offer some unique products to the off road aftermarket and decided that a bolt on portal box for a standard Dana axle would be a distinctive and exciting product to start with. Over a few short years these portal boxes evolved from a scribbled idea to a rouge engineering project to the first prototype you see here. The idea and design isn’t new, but the application is and it’s something that many hard core off roaders have bench raced about over the years, but it was only bench racing. Though new to the off road market Axletech seems to have the heritage and world wide reach to both produce and support their upcoming products. The Portal boxes are currently available only for a Dana 60 king pin inner axle mount with a 8-lug pattern and uses the standard Dana 60 inner axle shaft and U-joint, though other applications and bolt patterns are in consideration depending on demand. Thus it is exclusive to a front and rear steer vehicle, but future versions are already being designed and considered. The prototype has a 4.9-inch lift for added ground clearance, a 1.5 to 1 gear reduction, and each straight cut gear is over 2-inches wide for strength. The input axle is a standard 35-spline, but the output after the added gear reduction is a massive 41-spline 2-inch beefcake. Plus the knuckle design can use the standard 4-bolt or up to the aftermarket 6-bolt high steer Dana 60 arms. To deal with the scrub radius the recommended wheels will have a lot of back spacing, such as those used on military Humvee's, in fact the box was designed to fit inside the 16.5 Humvee wheel. Stay tuned for a complete install of these boxes in an upcoming issue and for more information check out www.motorsports.axletech.com