what's the difference between a diesel engine and a gasoline engine, besides fuel.?

Answer 1

Diesel engines use the heat of compression to ignite the fuel-air mixture. The physics of the general gas law are PV = nrT where Pressure, Volume and Temperature are the variables. n is the amount of gas in moles or molecules and r is a constant for the gas in question. As the piston travels upward, it compresses the gas increasing the pressure and the volume is decreasing, therefore the Temperature has to increase. It eventually reaches the auto ignition point and creates an explosion that pushes the piston downward for the power stroke.
A gasoline engine requires an external spark to ignite the fuel-air mixture.
Gasoline is much more flammable than diesel and the auto-ignition explosion is too violent to be contained safely, so the operating pressures are much lower.
A diesel engine has heavier, stronger pistons, wrist pins, connecting rods and bearings to withstand the higher pressures and torques encountered.
Diesel will give you much more power in a power to weight ratio and higher low rpm torques, but a gasoline engine will reach operating speed quicker, delivering faster acceleration.

Answer 2

The major difference lies in the way the fuel is ignited. After the initial start where a glow plug operating on electricity might be used to start the diesel, the fuel is ignited simply by compressing it which causes it to ignite simply from the heat store in it and that gained from the motor mass. An internal combustion engine, a gas engine, ignites the fuel with an electrical spark with each stroke of the cylinder. These are the basic differences.

Answer 3

Diesel engines are compression engines and gasoline engines are ignition engines.
Diesel engines are high compression engines and when the fuel air mixture is compressed to a certain point the cylinder fires from the heat generated by compression.
Gasoline engines require an electrical ignition system to fire the gas-air mixture.

Answer 4

Everything said so far, plus better fuel economy and flexibility (I have been using vegetable oil in my modified diesel for over a year now, approx. 30,000 miles), less maintenance, and engine life well over 500,000 miles.
By the way httnmrtt is wrong, diesels are faster than gas burners. At this years Le Mans, Audi entered two diesel cars and placed 1st and 3rd. I have also seen videos of diesels easily beating nitrous cars on the quarter mile, one of which was a Dodge Ram dually 4x4 against a modified Dodge Viper

Answer 5

gasoline engines use a spark plug to ignite the fuel. but diesel engines ignite the fuel by making so much pressure that it builds up and just goes off by itself.

Answer 6

A diesel engine does not have spark plugs, it uses glow plugs that stay hot when the ignition is on.Therefore it does have a distributor.

Answer 7

diesel has glo plugs