Recently, alternative fuels are drawing more attentions due to the increasing need for lower emission characteristics and fuel consumption rate in automotive engines. The GTL(gas to luquid) is the one of most favored candidates. It has higher cetane number(more than 75) and almost negligible sulphur and aromatic contents. Therefore, enhanced emission characteristics are expected even in the application in diesel engines without any modification. In this study, the cylinder pressure and heat release, emission characteristics with fuel injection timings are compared between diesel and GTL fuel in the single cylinder diesel engine. Noticeable reduction in PM, THC and CO emission are observed due to lower sulphur and aromatic contents in GTL. Also, the ignition delay decreased due to higher cetane number of GTL, which slightly decreased the amount of NOx emissions. With the retards of main injection timing, NOx decreases more for the case of GTL, while the level of THC and CO emissions still remains lower than the case of diesel. Therefore, there is much room for the control of injection timing for NOx reduction without sacrificing THC and CO emissions. With the retards of main injection timing, Small size distribution of PM became lager and there amount increased. But from all conditions, size distribution of PM for the case GTL was lower than Diesel.