The spray-wall impingement in diesel engines is important to mixture preparation, engine performance and pollutant emissions. The purpose of this paper is to study the effects of spray-wall impingement on fuel distribution, combustion and emission characteristics by using both experimental and numerical methods. To investigate the spray-wall impingement process, an impingement-chamber was designed and a visualization experiment system was also developed. The images of impinged spray and free spray were digitally recorded with an intensified CCD camera. To investigate the fuel distribution, combustion and emission characteristics of impinged spray in a real diesel engine, the fuel injection and combustion processes of an engine with impingement-chamber were simulated by CFD software. Equivalence ratio distribution results were obtained to understand the fuel distribution characteristics of the impinged spray. Some combustion and emission characteristics were also acquired and the results showed that ignition delay of impinged spray was shorter than that of free spray; NO emission of the impinged spray was significantly less than that of free spray, but soot emission of impinged spray was more than that of the free spray. This study found that the diesel engine with spray-wall impingement has significant potential to reduce NO emission.