Thanks for the reply.
I agree with adding some ventilation to the diffuser. I will do this tonight.
I figure I will take some different sized drill bits. Drill small holes closer to the fire put and bigger holes farther from the firepot. I saw some pictures on google image search when i was doing some research. Try to disperse that heat evenly and also not waste the tasty smoke by sending it straight to the stack.
Something similar to this:
The reason I feel I need something over the first pot is that even though the grease pan is slanted so that its highest end if the farthest from the fire pot, on my 2nd cook a grease fire erupted on the grease pan.
I'm pretty sure this is because of an error with the controller (I had it set to 225 and came back to a 480 degree cooker!) The auger was just feeding pellets continuously. I had to restart it and it seemed to work fine for a couple hours. Eventually it seems to get "confused" and can't keep the temperature.
It has been fine on short cooks this last 2 days.
My next long cook is Saturday morning. Beef Ribs. Going to try to impress my father-in-law.