Patent ID: 7178505

Claim:
A diesel engine comprising: a fuel injection apparatus for injecting a fuel into a combustion chamber; an EGR apparatus for returning part of exhaust gas into the combustion chamber; a control apparatus for controlling the fuel injection apparatus and the EGR apparatus so as to realize a premixed combustion in which a mixture, which is formed by a fuel injection completed before the compression top dead center, is compression ignited in the vicinity of the compression top dead center; and detection means for detecting an actual ignition timing of the mixture in a premixed region; wherein when the actual ignition timing detected by the detection means shifts from a preset optimum ignition timing in the vicinity of the compression top dead center, the control apparatus corrects the timing of fuel injection conducted by the fuel injection apparatus based on the difference between the actual ignition timing and the optimum igntion timing and matches the actual ignition timing with the optimum ignition timing.