The firebox door used to have two vent holes and the upper vent hole was way too high and smoke and heat would escape out that vent hole rather than be pulled into the smoking chamber. This was due to a few things but primarily the firebox being mounted too high and the very short exhaust stack. With the old setup the draft just wasn't strong enough to pull the heat and smoke into the chamber in any kind of crosswind. OFTEN a 5-10MPH crosswind would completely suffocate the fire and the wood would smolder and chug out horrible white smoke. So the only way to combat this was to keep the firebox door open at all times. In doing so you're losing a ton of heat and smoke and you're also not getting a great draft into the smoking chamber and across the meat. This gave way to massive temperature differences across the chamber... I usually had a 75-100F difference between the firebox end and the exhaust end... mind you this is WITH the heat management plate.
Some serious thought and testing was conducted by members of this forum and others and it was obvious that Yoder had made an error in their designs. Funny enough they chose to basically tell the users that we were all doing it wrong and they produced a video showing us how to "do it right." Use kiln dried wood, pre-heat your kiln-dried wood INSIDE the firebox, and start the fire by using TWO full chimneys of whitened over lump charcoal. Don't forget to add a chimney of whitened over lump every so often as well.
The big issue is they designed the cooker to only function in a certain way. I spent a bunch of time talking to customer service about the cooker and they kept on telling me that there was no need to open the firebox door because the cooker wasn't designed to function that way. They were adamant that opening the door would lead to having too big of a fire and it became a whole ordeal. If you happen to read the thread on the forum titled "2 Problems with the Yoder Wichita" you'll see the attempts made by people to alter their cookers so they would function properly. For such a high price cooker that shouldn't be necessary and I can assure you that other cookers in the same style and price range do not suffer from the same issues.
Personally, if it's not too late, I would cancel the order and look elsewhere. Lots of other pitbuilders out there who have been doing it right for a long time. If you really like the design of the Cheyenne, but want a similar version that actually works properly, you should take a look at the Horizon Smokers.
http://www.horizonbbqsmokers.com/backyard-smokers-1/16-classic-smoker
I also have had a great experience working with Chad Johnson from Johnson Custom Smokers. His smokers are reverse flow and they work very well.
www.johnsonsmokers.com
I would also suggest checking out Kat BBQ Smokers since they are in California and though the prices are a bit higher you'll save that on the shipping.
http://www.katbbqsmokers.com/
Personally I can't recommend any offset smokers by Yoder even if they claim they have fixed the issue. They were pretty arrogant and condescending when dealing with people who were having trouble with their cookers and it was frustrating. I bought a Cheyenne in 2015 and thought it was amazing, but it was so difficult to operate. I thought that's just how offset smokers were... that is until I decided to upgrade to a trailer sized pit from Johnson Smokers. After a few hours of operating that smoker I realized just how horrible the Yoder design was and I started researching it. That's how I found this forum with that thread about the Wichita and I saw that it wasn't just me.... kind of felt vindicated.
Good luck!
