The affects of altitude on diesel engines

Barrington Diesel Club, your source of engine specs and technical data for diesel engines.

The Affects of Altitude on diesel engines is an article at Barrington Diesel Club about how altitude affects Diesel Engines. Altitude is a factor that involves any diesel engine, in fact any engine that uses air. One of our aims is to provide such useful information as how altitude may relate to the operation of engines, transmissions, ships, aircraft, domestic appliances and so on and on. Other aims include providing technical data, specs and bolt torques relevant to all types of diesel engines beginning with but not limited to Cummins, Detroit Diesel, EMD and ADE engines.
At Barrington diesel club bolt tightening torques and fuel consumption rates are provided for many engines beginning with Detroit Diesel,Cummins, and ADE. Our Web Log provides a forum for discussing diesel engine features and problems. We also provide general technical data such as Standard Torques for bolts and nuts, Properties of materials like the melting and boiling points of metals, metric to imperial cross references, SAE Flywheel housing sizes, as well as providing articles of general interest like discussions on fuel consumption and Detroit Diesel Air Box Pressures.

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Altitude corrections

Essentially, the higher one goes the thinner is the air. If you go high enough a carburetted engine stops working, that's at about 4000 meters or 12,000 feet. Any higher than that you'll need fuel injection. Try climbing a hill at that altitude, and most of us will be puffing and panting after 50 meters or so.
So too diesel engines lose power with altitude; and below is a table with rough corrections we use when testing engines above sea level.

Detroit NA 2-Stroke engines:

2.5% Reduction in power per 1000 ft
0.8% Reduction in power per 100 m

4-Cycle Naturally aspirated engines:

3% loss in power per 1000 ft
1% loss in power per 100 m

All turbo engines:

1.5% loss in power per 1000 ft
0.5% loss in power per 100 m