My pointer would be to play with it.
Think about how to keep it low and slow and a constant temperature. Think about fire. Fire needs oxygen. Regulating the temperature has to do with the flow of oxygen so look at your set up. Hot air rises. Where is it going out, where is it coming in? How do you regulate it - does it have vents or something that can close and open? Mess around with those and see what they do to the temperature.
Oh, a simple tip also. Use natural charcoal if you can, and get a chimney for starting the first charcoal in the fire, don't use fluid and never use instant. Use good wood and play with different types to see the flavor you like.
So if you are using charcoal, you want to get the coals good and ready and soak the wood and let them sit on or near the charcoal. The first load of the day, as soon as you get that one load finished in the chimney go ahead and start a second one. You won't have to do that again, unless you let the fire go out! but you'll want to add some more charcoal later because you'll need some more fuel to keep the temperature up in a few hours.
You're going to find a balance between air flow and fuel.
One other - don't let the smoke get "dirty." You don't want big puffy white clouds of smoke coming out, you want it to be as clear as possible. The more puffy white, the more bitter taste. You do that by keeping the fire from flaring up. Not to much air, but enough to keep the hot going.
Get a remote control digital thermometer and play with the heat and regulating. If you are smoking pork, you want around 225 F. Pork butt is way more forgiving to spikes and dips in temperature than ribs are, so use butts to play around with and get the feel for the temperature regulation. Keep it low and slow about an hour and half per pound.
Oh, here's a tip. Get a tin pan, like a turkey roasting kind of pan or something like that. Boil a big pot of water while you are getting your meat ready and your fire going. Put the pan under the meat tray. When you fire is died down and about the right temperature, pour that big pot of boiling water in the pan. That will really help you stabilize the heat, because water boils at 212. So its like a big heat sink. It wouldn't hurt to put some vinegar, garlic, aromatics in that water. The meat drippings will go in that water and keep your grill clean. It will also help keep it moist but our goal isn't too steam it or anything.
You can brine the meat if you want to. Just put a silly amount of salt in a bucket of water, maybe add some vinegar and let the meat soak in there. I like to rub the pork with plain yellow mustard (you won't taste it later) and rub spices on that.
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