This paper presents a predictive design approach for the airpath control of diesel engines (EGR/ VGT). The approach arises naturally from a model based sight of engine control and is discussed both in the "double SISO" version as well as in a modified MIMO version designed to cope with artificial setpoints typically used to enforce exact closing of valves in engines subject to production variance. The approach has been tested on an AVL dynamic test bench with a production BMW four cylinder diesel engine and compared to the results obtained by the original control configuration. The results confirm that the model based predictive approach has a large potentiality to improve the system behavior in terms of pollutants during transients, and that in some cases even significant improvements of specific consumption are achieved. ©2006 IEEE.