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...

a ballast resistor gets really hot. especially if you just turn the key to on and leave it on without the car running. you are dumping a lot of power thru the coil with no off time so ya, it can get super hot.

burnt my fingers on mine once

ya it can get pritty hot -enough to burn up those mouse turds that were left behind it from four years of sittin