The Ford Ranger Raptor is the most dynamic, high-performance ute on the market by a country mile.

It’s fast, it’s fun and it’s capable, so it ticks the boxes for many users, many of whom might not normally be interested in a 4×4 ute. This makes the Ranger Raptor a shining light in a field of boring beige work utes. But that’s not to say that you can’t make a good thing better.

74Weld (↗) is a California-based engineering company producing portal axle boxes for a range of off-road vehicles including Trophy Trucks, Ultra4 buggies and road-going 4x4s from Toyota, Jeep and Ford.

The Ford portals came out of the Ford Performance Ultra4 program that includes King of the Hammers race week, so these are made for the toughest off-road conditions. This partnership led to the company producing portal boxes for the current-model Ford Bronco which, of course, rides on the same T6 platform as our Ranger and Everest models.

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Ultimate Offroad (↗) is a 4×4 business with a couple of facilities in Melbourne’s south-east suburbs. They work on all things 4×4 and off-road but are known for their big builds on US pick-up trucks. When Ben from Ultimate saw the 74Weld portal products for the T6 Fords and 250 Series Toyotas, he knew there’d be interest in them here in Australia.

Ultimate Offroad caused a stir at the 2025 Melbourne 4×4 Show when the team rolled in with its 250 Series Prado riding on 74Weld portals and 37-inch tyres. The monster Prado was the star of the show!

The Prado was a standout but it wasn’t ready for the road in Australia. In the months since then, Ben and his team have been busy building and testing the vehicles, working with the relevant authorities and departments, and jumping through hoops to get the portal conversion tested, certified and approved for Aussie roads.

As part of the process, they built this Ranger Raptor on 74Weld portals and it has become the first vehicle to get Second Stage Manufacturer (SSM) approval here in Australia. And they were kind enough to let us take it out for a day in the forest to try it out.

JUMP AHEAD

Inside the 74Weld portal conversion 

The key advantage of using portal axles over, say, a traditional suspension lift is that it allows you to raise the vehicle and increase ground clearance without resorting to tall, ungainly springs and the handling effects they have.

In fact, you can retain the factory-standard suspension on a 4×4 with portals and still enjoy the added height and clearance. When your starting point is the Ranger Raptor with its excellent Fox Racing Live Valve dampers, being able to retain them is a huge bonus.

The portal boxes raise the axle over the centreline of the wheels and hence the vehicle by 100mm. The Raptor kit is approved to run on 35-inch tyres, so you’re looking at around 150mm of increased height and, importantly, ground clearance over standard, but while retaining the standard suspension. The portal boxes are a bolt-on addition and don’t require any serious modifications, cutting or alterations to the base vehicle.

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Inside the boxes are four gears that allow the axles to turn in the right direction, and they give an 82 per cent reduction at the hub, meaning you don’t need to change final-drive gears when running tall tyres. This also reduces a lot of the stresses on components like axles and CV joints from running bigger tyres, and eliminates any loss of performance that comes with taller tyres. As mentioned, the Raptor portal kit in Australia is approved to ride on 35-inch tyres, but the 250 Series Toyota kit will be approved for 35s and 37s – giddy-up!

If you’re worried about the strength of the portal components, just remember that these same parts are serving duty in the world’s toughest rock pit at King of the Hammers and, while the buggies might be lighter than your road-going Raptor, some of those buggies are running V8 engines and pushing 40-inch tyres.

The team at 74Weld has been having a lot of fun taking IFS Toyotas like the Tacoma and 4Runner along some of America’s toughest tracks that were previously the exclusive domain of big-tyred, live-axle Jeeps and Broncos, showing just what a portal-equipped IFS 4×4 can do.

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Ultimate Offroad has made some changes to the suspension as part of its development and approval. These include 25mm spacers on the front struts to level the vehicle out and revised rear springs that allow the portal-equipped Raptor a GVM increase to 3510kg, up from the standard 3150kg you get from Ford.

The only component missing from this Raptor was the 74Weld billet-alloy upper control arms, which will be part of the package sold in Australia. They will look sweet behind the beautifully made billet-alloy uprights that are part of the 74Weld package.

Another feature of this vehicle is the 74Weld-specific Method Race Wheels. These forged-alloy wheels feature Method’s innovative Bead Grip technology and are made with a positive offset specifically to suit the wider wheel track of the portal conversion. As mentioned, 35-inch Nittos are fitted on this Raptor. The portal axles are also set up to take a central tyre inflation system, which is another product to come from 74Weld in the future.

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Driving the portal-equipped Ranger Raptor 

It was a cold and wet Melbourne day when we picked up the 74Weld Raptor from Ultimate Offroad (↗), hardly ideal for photography, so we were thankful for its bright orange hue to contrast a gloomy day.

Getting into the vehicle required a little extra effort due to the height but once inside it was all regular Ford Ranger fare. The only real difference was the view over the bonnet to the road from the elevated cockpit. Through roundabouts and on to the highway the vehicle felt like any other Raptor not running the standard BFG tyres. This vehicle had 35-inch Nittos fitted and they are a bit noisier than the BFGs, but overall the experience was very familiar.

On rougher backroads I could feel the stiffer rear springs, again feeling like a modified vehicle, and they took away much of the Raptor’s compliance and soft ride. That’s the price you pay for the higher payload but otherwise the rear steered and drove like a regular Ranger Raptor – and that’s a good thing! It was still a fun rig to punt on the forest tracks, with that familiar Raptor ‘Brap’ echoing through the valleys, and plenty of sure-footed grip on the road.

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Ultimate Offroad will offer a softer rear spring for the conversion if that is what the owner is looking for. Other options include 74Weld billet upper and lower arms for the rear. There was no hint of the extra height or wobbly springs that you might get with a suspension-only lift. It was stable and compliant no matter what we threw at it.

We switched the transfer case to 4×4 Auto on the gravel road and it all worked as normal, and then locked high range once we peeled off to the muddy tracks. The ruts in these bog holes are deep but the clearance afforded by the tyres and portals made light work of them, with no scraping on the high crowns. Into the pit and we were into low range, all working just as Ford intended.

Again, the extra ground clearance afforded by the portals allowed us to crawl up and down the rocks with ease and not worry about clearance. The Raptor’s front and rear locking diffs still work as usual, providing loads of grip, although the wet rock meant we had to pick our lines.

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Final verdict: Portal-equipped Ranger Raptor

The 74Weld portal axle conversion (↗) on the Ranger Raptor takes what was already the leading vehicle in its segment and raises it up, both literally and figuratively.

It gives the donor vehicle considerable extra ground clearance, which you can’t get enough of in an off-road vehicle, without the compromises that come with a tall suspension lift. The downside, and there is one, is the cost of the conversion. Drive-in/drive-out owners will be looking at close to $55,000 for the portal conversion, but this includes the four portal boxes, billet uprights and UCAs for the front end, five 74Weld/Method Race Wheels shod in 35-inch Nitto tyres, upgraded brake rotors and ADR-approved brake lines, front strut levelling spacers, a 3510kg GVM upgrade, and a fully engineered and approved package ready for you to hit the tracks.

It’s not cheap but there’s a lot of beautiful mechanical hardware in there and it all works! Approval is via SSM and Ultimate Offroad has state approval for post-registration installs in Victoria. We look forward to seeing the Prado and more portal-converted rides from Ultimate Offroad soon.

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Key portal-specific specs and features

  • Portal axle system delivers approximately 100mm lift at the axle centreline
  • Adds around 150mm total ground clearance increase when paired with 35-inch tyres
  • Internal four-gear portal hub design
  • 82% gear reduction at the hub
  • Allows retention of factory suspension geometry and Fox Racing Live Valve dampers
  • Eliminates need for differential ratio changes with larger tyres
  • Reduces stress on axles, CVs, and driveline components
  • Bolt-on portal housings requiring no major chassis or suspension modification
  • Designed for extreme off-road load and durability applications
  • Compatible with 35-inch tyre package on Ranger Raptor specification
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