To simulate the physical and chemical processes inside combustion engines is possible by appropriate software and high performance computers. For combustion engines a good design is such that it combines a low fuel consumption with low emissions of soot and nitrogen oxides. These are however partly conflicting requirements. In this paper we approach this problem in a multi-criteria setting which has the advantage that it is possible to estimate the trade off between the different objectives and the decision of the optimal solution is postponed until all possibilities and limitations are known. The optimization algorithm is based on surrogate models and is here applied to optimize the design of a diesel combustion engine.