no, that would be expected because we have bypassed the ignition switch by going straight to coil from the battery....no way to turn it off other than by disconnecting the wire from the battery.

Okay, it makes no sense as we should have eliminated most of the voltage drop.

Yet, as soon as you back off the key, it fires off.

Okay, lets go back to my suggestion of a week, or so, ago. If you have another battery that is charged up, pull it out and connect a wire from its + to the coil plus and leave the jumper across the ballast for this test as well.

Connect a wire from the battery - post to a ground on the car under the hood...It should work to the car battery ground terminal, or to sheetmetal ground off the car battery ground.

If we can ever get the damn thing to start when cranking, then we will have made some progress even if we don't know why