A very good friend of mine's father has been a diesel mechanic for over 45 years. He was the head diesel mechanic at a large JD dealership that also sold Ford/CNH for many years. He has worked on single cylinder diesel engines that are 8 to 10 hp, and he has done most all of the work on a Cummins QTA38-C engine. The big Cummins engine is a 1200 hp engine that puts out 3450 ft. lbs. of torque. /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif It is used in several haul trucks, water trucks, and loaders in the coal mine by here in Cannelton, IN as well as thousands of other mines. You can look that up, it is one of the test places for some of the bigger engines from Cummins.
Anyway, he has taken apart more diesel engines than I've probably seen, and I've always lived in a rural farming area. He told me to never use either in a diesel unless the engine was pretty well "shot", and the alternative was not being able to use the engine at all. Apparently the "right" amount of either will really help start a diesel engine, but you can't apply the "right" amount very easily with a spray can. He said that people almost always hit the intake with way too much and it is just a matter of time before it causes the "magic smoke" to come out of the engine. You know what magic smoke is; it is the smoke that can only be installed by the factory. Once it leaves the engine, it can never be put back in, and the engine is toast. /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif
In general, small diesels require very little maintenance. I have a 2 cyl. Onan diesel generator that was set up to a 5000 gallon diesel tank and ran flood lights at a coal mine. It was generally running all of the time except once a week or so when it was shut off to have the air filter cleaned/replaced, and the oil level checked. This generator was in service there for 5 years. Do the math on how many hours it has on it. Even if you take all sorts of things into consideration for down time, the thing has to have 30k hours on it. /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif It still starts fine; after holding the air pre-heat grid button for the required 60 seconds. It has had little maintenance and still runs fine. I doubt any gas engine could claim that.