This paper presents an investigation of oxygenated neat palm biodiesel in a direct injection single cylinder diesel engine in terms of ignition, combustion and emissions characteristics. Conventional non-oxygenated diesel fuel is compared as baseline. The engine testing is performed between the operating speed of 2000-3000 rpm and load of up to 3 bar of brake mean effective pressure. From it, a total of 50 experiment cases are tested to form a comprehensive operational speed-load contour map for ignition and combustion; while various engine-out emissions such as NO, CO, UHCs and CO2 are compared based on fuel type-speed combinations. The ignition and combustion evolution contour maps quantify the absolute ignition delay period and elucidate the difference between that of palm biodiesel and fossil diesel. Although diesel has shorter ignition delay period by up to 0.6 CAD at 3000 rpm and burns more rapidly at the start of combustion, combustion of palm biodiesel accelerates during the mid-combustion phase and overtakes diesel in the cumulative heat release rates (HRR) prior to the 90% cumulative HRR. This can be attributed to the oxygen contained in palm biodiesel assisting in localized regions of combustion. In terms of performance, the oxygenated nature of palm biodiesel provided mixed performances with improved thermal efficiency and increased brake specific fuel consumption, due to the improved combustion and lower calorific values, respectively. Emission measurements show that NO for palm biodiesel is lower compared to diesel at low and mid operating speed by up to 36.8%, which can be attributed to the lower combustion temperature. Other emissions such as CO, UHCs and CO2 showed similar emissions output for the two fuels. The prevailing trends from this study is also compared against trends from other similar studies to form a definitive trend guide for the performance and emissions parameters of interest for light-duty diesel engines when fuelled with biodiesel. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.