This paper investigated the impact of injection angle and advance injection timing on combustion, emission, and performance characteristics in a dimethyl ether (DME) fueled compression ignition engine through experimentation on spray behaviors and the use of numerical methods. To achieve this aim, a visualization system and two injectors with different injection angles were used to analyze spray characteristics. The combustion, emission, and performance characteristics were analyzed by numerical methods using a detailed chemical kinetic DME oxidation model. Each of five injection angles and timings were selected to examine the effect of injection angle and timing. It was revealed that the injected spray with narrow injection angles was impinged on the bottom wall after the SOI of BTDC 60 degrees, and most of the fuel spray and evaporation with the wide injection angles had a distribution at the crevice region when the injection timing was advanced. In addition, NOx emissions at the SOI of BTDC 20 degrees and TDC had higher values, and the soot emission quantities were extremely small. The narrow injection angles had good performance at the advanced injection timing, and the injection timing over a range of BTDC 40-20 degrees showed superiority in performance characteristics. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.