Jim, If your are after modifications, baby sitting, rusting, hard to maintain and uneven temps, you have the wrong pit. Once you have used it you should be impressed..The only inital advice is to cleanout the burnpot after or before each use..Make sure the hole
below the igniter is unobstructed. That is where the hot air from the igniter enters the pot.
I would also recommend that you go to the Memphis website and print out the owners manual. The pit model and s/n will be required to aces the correct manual.