It has great significance on the performance of cylinder liner-piston ring (CLPR) friction pairs with the different surface textures and affects the service life, reliability, and economy of diesel engines. However, most studies on the surface texture applied to CLPR have concentrated on simulated tests and computations, and the actual hot engine tests were ignored. The aim of this study was to gain insights into the interactions between different types of surface textures and the performance of diesel CLPRs under hot engine conditions. Three types of thread groove textures on cylinder liner surfaces with different widths, including 1, 2, and 3 mm, and a circular dimple texture on a piston ring with a depth of 100 μm were designed and machined, and were then tested under hot test conditions using a four-stroke diesel engine. To investigate the performance of diesel engine using different types of surface textures, the wear mass loss of the piston ring, worn surface morphologies and wear depth of the cylinder liner, exhaust gas emissions performance, and vibration performance of the diesel engine were obtained. Compared with untextured CLPRs, the experimental results indicated that appropriate surface texture (e.g., 3 mm wide grooved texture) significantly affected the comprehensive performance of the diesel engine. These findings will aid in understanding the performance impact of surface texture on diesel under hot engine conditions as well as its actual application to diesel engines. •Surface texture improved the performances of diesel CLPR under hot engine tests condition.•Wear evaluation, emissions performance, and vibration performance of diesel CLPR was studied.•Experimental basis for improving the performance of CLPR on Marine engines was proposed.