Diesel

Hey, I am using the SD book and website to bring me up to speed on things that cross over well from automotive into diesel. I was hoping someone with much more experience might could high light the most useful stuff to me. I will be going through all of the material but I would like to extract the most useful stuff first and then come back for the other stuff. I know that sections 6 - 9, section 12 and section 24 will be useful. But what other's would you suggest? I am going by the fact that we don't rely on spark plugs and thus will not be dealing with stochiometric issues. Diesels typically run in a lean burn where as much air as possible is forced into the chamber, as im sure  you know. Just putting it out there. I have been a shade tree mechanic my whole life but the coronavirus has forced me to take up a new profession. Thanks for your help

Yes it is too easy to think of a diesel as a gasoline engine without spark plugs.
Diesel fuel has a high carbon content so contains more energy per gallon than gasoline. Problem is it burns more slowly in droplets, so it isn't possible to run a diesel at anything like the ideal stoichiometric ratio because there simply isn't time to burn the fuel fully. This is why if you try to get more power from a diesel by injecting more fuel it produces masses of black smoke from unburned carbon.
The whole history of diesel engines is really interesting the early engines were huge very slow running and ran on coal dust. It was a guy called Harry Riccardo was one of the first to figure out in the 1920's that to make a relatively smoke free automotive sized diesel you had to improve injection and increase tubulence around the injector.