I purchased this 2024 Land Cruiser First Edition earlier this year after getting put on numerous Toyota wait lists and calling over a dozen dealerships locally here is SoCal. Out of the box the truck lives up to the quality that one would expect from Toyota, but of course as you all know we can't leave well enough alone, especially when we are doing more aggressive trails and want to protect our trucks. Typically to get the vehicle higher to gain the much needed ground clearance, a suspension lift is used to push the truck higher. While this works, there are usually limitations to suspension down travel in IFS vehicles and pinion and Panhard angles in the rear. I'd always been fascinated with the concept of portals, but there wasn't much of an aftermarket that provided a bolt on unit compatible modern vehicles. Over the last several years 74 Weld (El Cajon, CA) started off building portals for Ultra 4 and Trophy Trucks and had great success and is really starting to become more of a common component on these trucks for the obvious benefit it provides for ground clearance. With the adoption into the race world, Quinn at 74 Weld wanted to make this a product that could be applied to the offroad market and started taking the proven technology and putting it onto a bolt on application for Jeep, Bronco and Toyota.
While I was at Overland Expo West this spring, I stopped by the booth and talked to the guys and after a 15 minute conversation, their design and product seemed to tick all the boxes. Those boxes where, I wanted a lift and still wanted to keep factory geometry and travel and getting a regear at the same time. The portals offered all of those things, which include a 3.88" lift, 1.22 gear reduction while accommodating all the factory wheels speed sensors, ABS and Automatic E-brake components. The portals allows for a 35" tire to fit with no trimming, but I wanted to go with a 37" tire for additional clearance (because you can never have too much!), which required some minimal trimming of the fender flare and pushing the liners out of the way a little bit. Since the body is sitting 4" higher, the tire at full stuff is about 2" from the fender. I chose the 37" tire size because of several factors, but mainly they look cool, but bigger tires mean more traction and with the gear reduction at the wheel, I would still be about 10% over geared, giving more low end control offroad (a 40" tire would put it back to stock gearing).
So the process started by removing the front factory knuckles, which are replaced by the portal which has the upright built in out of a solid piece of 7
7075 aluminum. The rear hub and axle are removed and replaced with a full float axle connecting directly to the Portal input, which bolts onto the factory housing.
The portals add 2.75" of width per side because of the gears, so in order to bring the wheels back in, they recommend a minimum +35mm offset. I ended up getting a set of TRD Pro BBS Forged Wheels from a 3rd Gen Tundra which had a +47mm offset bringing the wheel in just a bit further to minimize poke.
74 Weld engineered the portals to utilize the existing Calipers, but the rotors are replaced because of the portal design. Fortunately Toyota designed the LC250 with a 4 piston caliper front brake, which has no problem stopping the 37's loaded down.
Over all I achieved about 6" of ground clearance over stock and the truck has a great balanced stance and lift. I am planning on upgrading the stock shocks and going with something a little heavier duty because the stock suspension, while smooth, it just blows through the travel on any decent dip or hit. This should give me an additional 1" of lift and push the front CV down a little giving me a little more up travel.
While I was at Overland Expo West this spring, I stopped by the booth and talked to the guys and after a 15 minute conversation, their design and product seemed to tick all the boxes. Those boxes where, I wanted a lift and still wanted to keep factory geometry and travel and getting a regear at the same time. The portals offered all of those things, which include a 3.88" lift, 1.22 gear reduction while accommodating all the factory wheels speed sensors, ABS and Automatic E-brake components. The portals allows for a 35" tire to fit with no trimming, but I wanted to go with a 37" tire for additional clearance (because you can never have too much!), which required some minimal trimming of the fender flare and pushing the liners out of the way a little bit. Since the body is sitting 4" higher, the tire at full stuff is about 2" from the fender. I chose the 37" tire size because of several factors, but mainly they look cool, but bigger tires mean more traction and with the gear reduction at the wheel, I would still be about 10% over geared, giving more low end control offroad (a 40" tire would put it back to stock gearing).
So the process started by removing the front factory knuckles, which are replaced by the portal which has the upright built in out of a solid piece of 7
7075 aluminum. The rear hub and axle are removed and replaced with a full float axle connecting directly to the Portal input, which bolts onto the factory housing.
The portals add 2.75" of width per side because of the gears, so in order to bring the wheels back in, they recommend a minimum +35mm offset. I ended up getting a set of TRD Pro BBS Forged Wheels from a 3rd Gen Tundra which had a +47mm offset bringing the wheel in just a bit further to minimize poke.
74 Weld engineered the portals to utilize the existing Calipers, but the rotors are replaced because of the portal design. Fortunately Toyota designed the LC250 with a 4 piston caliper front brake, which has no problem stopping the 37's loaded down.
Over all I achieved about 6" of ground clearance over stock and the truck has a great balanced stance and lift. I am planning on upgrading the stock shocks and going with something a little heavier duty because the stock suspension, while smooth, it just blows through the travel on any decent dip or hit. This should give me an additional 1" of lift and push the front CV down a little giving me a little more up travel.
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