Overview
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Story Intro
Over the past decade, Mazda has touted that a turbo-diesel would arrive, but the timeline kept buyers wondering if that would actually happen. Wonder now more. Called Skyactiv-D, the engine is the result of some serious development work by Mazda’s engineers, who appear to have broken many rules in the diesel playbook. The typical diesel uses a cast-iron engine block and a high compression ratio to create combustion (diesels don’t use spark plugs). The Skyactiv-D significantly lowers the compression within a lighter aluminum block.