As many of you know I'm a huge fan of portal axles and with only two players in the aftermarket portal axle world I figured I'd stop and see Portal Tek on my drive through Salt Lake city. I got the guys to assemble one of their two gear portal boxes for an upcoming story you can read in the magazine, and then I started asking about future projects and they revealed something very cool in the works.
It turns out Portal Tek in conjunction with Ballistic Fabrication will soon be offering a corporate 14-bolt drop out style axle. They will have prototypes at the Easter Jeep Safari, but showed me some engineering drawings of the aluminum third member that will hold the 14-bolt gears and locker. The Ballistic fabricated housing will offer huge weight and ground clearance savings over the original 14-bolt and will result in just a half inch less ground clearance than the most common aftermarket Ford 9-inch fabricated housings. Plus the 14-bolt has three pinion support bearings, a 10.5-inch ring gear, and gearing options down to 5.38 ratio. Plus if you want more a race spec magnesium third member is also in the works. Stay tuned for an exclusive build up once they go into production.