I was at a track day yesterday and went into the fourth session with about a quarter tank of fuel in my 2017 Carrera 2. I had started the day with a full tank of gas and was going through about a quarter tank in each 25-minutes session, so I figured I could make it through the last one, even though the car was telling me to refuel. There was no convenient fuel available (track gas was $10/gallon).

On the 8th lap of the session, the engine cut out coming out of a long right-hand, uphill corner. I got a check engine warning along with an indication that the engine was in reduced power mode. I was able to drive slowly back to the pits where I stopped and restarted the engine. That banished the "reduced power" indication and the engine seemed to run fine. I went back out for a slow cool-down lap before calling it a day.

After packing up, I left the track and drove slowly to the nearest gas station, which was roughly 20 miles away. There, I filled the tank with 17.175 gallons, half a gallon more than I had ever added before, so the car was on fumes, though it drove completely normally to the station.

It drove home fine, but now I have a check engine light and when I checked the code, it was P061B Powertrain, which is (Internal Control Module) Torque Calculation Performance. Has anyone seen this code? It seems it was initiated by fuel starvation, but does it have any more significance?

 

This error is caused by the control module determining that your car is not generating the proper torque for the throttle position and air flow supplied. Usually caused by a bad MAF ( which you dont have) or throttle valve error ( running out of gas instead). I would just clear the error and move on.

google the code to read more

 

I had something similar happen to an old GTI I had in the past when it had low fuel and going up hills. It had something to do with my fuel pump. My guess is that on track you hit G's that slosh the fuel around similar to oil starvation on cars without Dry Sumps.

 

That is, of course, exactly what happened. With low fuel, you are going to get fuel starvation first in a corner, especially along one. The location of the fuel pickup determines whether it's a left or right-hand corner. That's why I was willing to go out with low fuel , figuring that even if I hit starvation in a corner, there would be enough fuel to drive back tot he pits if I drove slowly without much cornering. And based on my ability to do just that, plus a cool-down lap, plus 20 miles to the gas station, suggests that there was still nearly a gallon of fuel left in the tank when starvation occurred.

But I would have thought that such a code would clear itself when it was no longer occurring after a few engine start-stop cycles.