Does airflow port placement and smoke stack placement matter?

Crow, morning and welcome to the forum..... The exhaust stack should be near the top of the smoker... and air inlets near the bottom.... a smoker needs good air flow where the meat etc. is located for moisture removal and smoke contact with the product....  The smoker looks good.... keep up with the pics as you progress.....   Dave

My set up is just about like yours, I put the chim in the top dead center, but you could put it on either side or in back but at the top and for the the intake you want at the bottom, you want to get that to draft up to the chim. my Chim is 3" with a damper in it and then on the bottom I have 3 1" holes, with pipe thru it and on the end of the pipe nipples is threaded, so I can put a cap on one, two or all three if I want. As far as the hot plate at the bottom goes, I tried the same thing and could not get the heat I wanted, so I bought a Old smokey smoker replacement element and I get all the heat now I want, I will try to get you some pics. Good Luck looking good so far.



Here is the Chim on top with Damper got it done at a local hvac shop for 10.00



Here is the intake at bottom



Hope this helps you out some if you need more let us know

Make sure you season it before using also. I would luve to see some pics also if I undo my PID I can get to about 325 but I cant control then, I need new pid cant wait for the finished pics