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Fischer-Tropsch (FT) synthetic fuels have been shown to produce lower soot and oxides of nitrogen emissions than petroleum-based diesel #2 (D2) in previous studies. This performance is frequently attributed to the very low aromatic content as well as essentially zero sulfur content. The objective of this empirical study was to investigate the high engine load regime using a military FT and D2 fuel in a CFR diesel engine at fueling levels approaching stoichiometric. A testing matrix comprised of various injection advance set points, fueling amounts (e.g. load) above 6 bar gross indicated mean effective pressure (IMEPg), and three different compression ratios (CR) was pursued. The results show that oxides of nitrogen emissions are always equal to or lower running FT compared to diesel. This result is attributed to the higher cetane number of FT leading to lower peak in-cylinder pressures as compared to D2.