The concept that engine design is all important in the use of vegetable oils as a diesel fuel has been pointed out by many researchers. One hundred percent of vegetable oil can be used safely in an indirect injection engine, but not in a direct injection engine due to the high degree of atomization required for this type. This problem is related to increasing droplet size on injection into the cylinder that results in poor combustion. This in turn, causes the formation of deposits in the combustion chamber, together with oil dilution due to introduction of unburnt fuel into the crankcase. The objective of this work was to evaluate the effect of increasing fuel inlet temperature on viscosity and performance of a single cylinder, unmodified diesel engine. The overall results showed that fuel heating increased peak cylinder pressure and was also beneficial at low speed and under part-load operation. The high combustion temperature at high engine speed becomes the dominant factor, making both heated and unheated fuel to acquire the same temperature before fuel injection. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.