A swirl chamber type diesel engine attachable to 18 kW agricultural tractors was improved to reduce exhaust emissions. Compression ratio and throat area ratio of the combustion chamber were varied to determine optimum combustion conditions. Tests were composed of full load and 8-mode emission tests. Compression ratio was fixed as 21, but the swirl chamber volume was increased by 3.8%. Output power, torque, specific fuel consumption, exhaust gas temperature, and smoke level were not considerably different for compression ratios of 21.5 (reference condition) and 21 (test condition), while NOx, HC, CO and PM levels for the compression ratio of 21 were decreased by 11%, 46%, 28%, 11%, respectively, from those for the compression ratio of 21.5. The tests were also conducted with a compression ratio of 22 and 4.3% increased chamber volume. Output power, torque, exhaust gas temperature and smoke level were greater, while specific fuel consumption was less for the compression ratio of 22 than those for the compression ratio of 21.5. Increase of compression ratio decreased HC and CO levels by 24%, 39%, but increased NOx and PM levels by 24%, 39%. Based on these results, a compression ratio of 21 was selected as an optimum value. Then, full load tests with the selected compression ratio of 21 were carried out for different throat ratios of 1.0%, 1.1%, 1.2%. Output power and torque were greatest and smoke was lowest when throat area ratio was 1.1%, which satisfied the target values of specific fuel consumption (less than 272 g/$kW{cdot}h$) and exhaust gas temperature (less than $550^{circ}C$). Therefore, a throat area ratio of 1.1% was selected as an optimum value.