The combustion process and the performance of a diesel engine are seriously affected by the ignition delay period of the fuel used. Some methods for improving the combustion process in the engine cylinder are to well match the strength of air swirl with the space of sprays in the cylinder, to blend an ignition improver in the fuel, to inject a small amount of auxiliary fuel prior to main injection and so on. Recently, the improvement of fuel economy and the reduction of exhaust smoke and NO have been successfully achieved by supplying diesel engines with emulsified fuel. However, it is very difficult to know real combustion mechanism under such special conditions, because of many factors affecting on the combustion process in practical reciprocating engine. In the present paper, the combustion processes of diesel fuel and emulsion fuel were tried to improve and to observe by making contact with various lean pre-mixtures in the hot air stream duct. This hot air stream method has an advantage that the spontaneous combustion process can be observed under a simplified condition.