Motor not strong enough

Projects General Guidance
1

I used an Arduino to move amodified RC car in forward and reverse. I had to add some more weight to the car as per the project. The car still moves with the extra weight, but is very sluggish. I think what I really need is a different motor with more toque, but I cannot replace the motor in the car so I was hoping for a different solution.

The motor runs on 3AA's ~(4.5V), can I run it on 5V without a problem? While this won't give me more toque, will it make the car more responsive? It seems like the motor has no get up and go. it's fine once it gets going but slow to start and sometimes barely moves. Is there a better way to get more toque without replacing the motor and gearing?

2

Not really, but you might also get a better result, for a while, if you replace the AAs with NiMh cells - perhaps four of them.

3

It may be that the motor driver is not capable of supplying the required motor current. What are you using?

4

jremington:
It may be that the motor driver is not capable of supplying the required motor current. What are you using?

And / or, if it's old school like an L298 it will be throwing most of the voltage away. They drop almost 2V always, and that drop rises (if a drop can rise?) to over 4V at high current. So at startup (ie stalled) there would be very little getting to the motor.

But that's speculation, since we don't know what driver's in play.