The performance of a direct-injection type diesel engine often depends on the shape of combustion chamber, strength of swirl or squish, the number of nozzle holes, etc. This is of course because the process of combustion in the cylinder was affected by the mixture formation process. In this paper, the relation betweeen the flame progress and the performance of engine was clarified by changing variously the combustion process in cylinder with a special method, and thus the measures for improving the combustion were indirectly examined. Namely it was investigated what effect the flame progress in cylinder, which was varied with the locality of the lean premixture injected by the auxiliary injection method using an auxiliary injection nozzle in advance at the place where main spray was injected later, has on the engine output, the exhaust smoke density and the NO concentration in exhaust gas.