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I just got off the phone . . .
. . . with an acquaintance who is an engineer with Caterpillar Corp. She pretty much supported what Oil Pan put out in his answer in the above.
Until the air temperature approaches freezing ( 0 deg C ), a diesel engine runs with greater efficiency as the intake temperature drops. However, this is in power generation applications and the specific torque production levels were high.
If the torque needs are low (low mass/drag vehicles ) maybe we can benefit from hot intake air. All the papers I see are in fairly high specific output regimes not the light load regions.
My gut feeling is that, without dynamically controlling the hot air and the associated fueling/timing, there will be no benefits and may even generate a loss of fuel economy.
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