I had power hooked up for the first time in over 4 years in my car tonight.

I was doing final checking before fire up and noticed smoke pouring out of the cowl with the key on for a few minutes while I reviewed things, like looking for smoke and fire to break out.

I checked all the wiring I could get my head in position under the dash.

I checked for wrong connections under hood.

I then rehooked things up and noticed that the fan runs even in "off", something I didn't recall about my car, so I unplugged it.

Next go around I had no smoke but the wires to the ballast and the ballast itself were VERY hot. I can't remember how hot they normally get.

The ballast looks new and might have been replaced as I sometimes pull parts off of nonrunners to get a car back up and running, then replace the nonrunners stuff later. I know a new ballast can smoke for a few seconds but...