Sorry, this article is currently incomplete. We'll have this finished up soon. In the meantime, check out some other articles on Cars Simplified!Most diesel engines have the same basic design as a gasoline-powered piston engines. However, because of the properties of diesel fuel, diesel engines need to compress the air/fuel mixture much more than a gasoline engine. The compression itself causes the fuel to combust.
Unlike gasoline engines, diesel motors don't use spark plugs, and sometimes use glow plugs to get the combustion chamber up to temperature early on as the engine has started.