Buy a bag of hickory wood chips at wally world. Split chunks intopices about the size of half of a deck of cards. Soak wood chinks over night in water. Night before you are going to cook ribs put a dry rub onto them. Dry rub can be 10% spice mixture of your choice and 90% brown sugar. Wrap ribs in plastic wrap, and put in fridge over night.
next day about 6 hours before you want to eat put ribs on grill, with heat turned on high. leave on high for 5 mins or so to get grill hot. Turn gas off.
Get small metal pan, and put in 6-8 hunks of charcoal that is burning, put 5-6 hunks of water soaked wood on top of charcoal. Put pan in grill with ribs.
Cover grill with wet towell (this will keep smoke in, and stop it from leaking from holes in grill.
Add charcoal and more wood hunks as needed, and to keep smoke rolling. Every once in a while tunr gas on and fire up grill to create a little heat.
Do this for 2 hours. This won't cooki ribs but will give them smoke flavor.
Take ribs off grill, wrap in foil and put in 275 oven for 3-4 hours.
Finish on grill at high heat, basting with sauce. This high heat will cause saice to caramlize. You will be turning ribs every 2-3 mins, and coating on sauce to build up layers of browned (burnt) sauce.
The key is a good grill.
Eye can get you into a nice 3 burner (used) for a real good price.