Diesel engines have often been tarnished with the reputation that they are the noisy, dirty, and antiquated smoke billowing animals of the engine world. The truth about today’s engine is, however, quite the opposite. Advanced electronic engine management systems, improvements in fuel injection design, air flow and fuel management, along with post combustion treatments have overcome many of these previous design flaws and the resulting stigma that was associated with these engines. In fact, current diesel engine designs produce less harmful emissions per given volume of fuel burned than a gasoline powered engine of similar horsepower. The introduction of these new technologies has, however, presented the industry with a number of additional challenges in order to maintain a reliable engine.
Much has changed in the design of diesel engines, and today’s engines weigh half as much, produce nine times the power and twenty-eight times the fuel injection pressures as they did in the 1930’s. Such enormous gains have not occurred without some pretty remarkable technological advances in engine design along with advancements in fuel injection and the actual science behind the internal combustion process.