This paper reports the basic performance of a naturally aspirated DI diesel engine which is used widely in industry and agriculture when vegetable oils are used as fuel substitutes. In this paper, the properties of vegetable oils as diesel fuel were investigated and the load-performance of diesel engine when vegetable oils were used, as tested compared against diesel fuel. The general objective of this investigation is to realize an efficient, clean, and low carbon deposit combustion of the vegetable oils in diesel engines, showing their feasibility as diesel fuel substitutes. The results of this experiment were as follows; (1) Compared with diesel fuel, the droplet size of vegetable oil is very large. (2) Compared with diesel fuel, rapeseed oil, palm oil, and their blend fuels offered lower smoke, lower NOx, ower engine noise, and high thermal efficiency in a D.I. diesel engine However, there were carbon deposit and piston ring sticking problems with long-term operation. (3) For ethanol-rapeseed oil blends, a 10-20% of ethanol content is recommended to enable lower BSHC and less smoke without a remarkable increase in engine noise compared with pure rapeseed oil. (4) A 10% oxygen content in the vegetable oils is contributed to reduced smoke emission.