As said in earlier posts the only diesels that will give a flutter/dose/compressor surge are the ones that have a throttle butterfly. they work in the same principle as a petrol engine, butterfly position determines the amount of diesel that will be injected and how often etc and as you all kno the pressure has no where to go but out of the air filter..
Most of the new aged japanese diesels run on a common rail system, engine runs a normal engine driven fuel pump which feeds up to the "common rail" it then goes from there to each cylinder through an EUP (electronic unit injectors) which inject the right amount of diesel determined by throttle position via a sensor on the accelerator pedal/rpm/load/speed etc!
The older diesel engines just run the conventional style diesel injection pump, which has a rack inside it, inturn it sends the diesel up the pipes to the injectors detirmined by engine position (its run via the timing gears) so it doesnt need a butterfly
All a bit confusing i kno but it sort of makes sense when u work on them everyday, might not have everything 100% right but it gives you guys a bit of an idea how they work. some of the euro diesels combine all of them together to really stuff us up lol, we have a Merc vito van as a breakdown vehicle and it flutters like mad!!
As stated above ^^ most of the diesels that have butterflys are there for emissions purposes. but i have seen a few engines that actually use themas a throttle body