A commercial diesel engine was converted into a dedicated natural gas engine to reduce the exhaust emissions in a retrofit of a diesel-fueled vehicle. The cylinder head and piston were remodeled into engine parts suited for a spark ignition engine using natural gas. The remodeling of the combustion chamber changed the compression ratio from 21.5 to 10.5. A multi-point port injection(MPI) system for a dedicated natural gas engine was also adopted to increase the engine power and torque through improved volumetric efficiency, to allow a rapid engine response to changes in throttle position, and to control the precise equivalence ratio during cold-start and engine warm-up. The performance and exhaust emissions of the retrofitted natural gas engine after remodeling a diesel engine are investigated. The emissions of the retrofitted natural gas engine were low enough to satisfy the limits for a transitional low emission vehicle(TLEV) in Korea. We concluded that a diesel engine can be effectively converted into a dedicated natural gas engine without any deterioration in engine performance or exhaust emissions.