I put it into gear and it dies.

ok, so this time I ACTUALLY bypassed the ballast resistor and the problem still exists. only fires in crank.
My question is, when I gave 12 volts to the "coil" end of the ballast and made it run, would that mean the problem is before the ballast resistor?
Ok cool. We have progress. Now you need to see "where" in that circuit it's losing power. You got a test light?