How is gasoline different from diesel, and why does it damage the car if you put the wrong kind in the tank?
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Think of diesel as canola and of gas as perfume. Diesel engines compress air in the cylinders until its very hot then a small amount of oil is injected at high pressure that burns and creates even more pressure, pushing the piston down. Diesel engines are not throttled, that is they are regulated by the amount of fuel injected, not by the amount of air. This is also the reason they will not have good engine braking, hence decompression (jake) braking. Gas engines work by having a vaccum (created by a throttle) in the intake that atomize the perfume-like fuel and mix it with air at a specific ratio (stoichiometric is something like 14.7 parts air to one part pure gasoline). This mixture is then pulled into the cylinder, compressed and then ignited with the help of a spark plug. So if you put diesel in a gas engine, it would not atomize just clog up everything. On the other hand, diesel fuel being oily will function as a lubricant. Putting gas in a diesel engine will mess your injection pump as gasoline is more of a solvent tho I have heard people saying that adding a small amount of gasoline to diesel in winter time helps with starting.
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