so what did you do with the original secondairy coil?
Did you remove it from the vic?
Just use the two choke coils as secondairy, or wrap a bifilar coil and use it as a secondairy?
I am happy that you still try to uncover the vic, Brian!
Yes, you have all that correct, then I dropped in the secondary and got that secondary smoking hot.
did it vanish and appear on the other side of your house?

Smoking hot? That looks like Eddy Current effects to me.
It like move a magnet very quick in a copper tube.
What might have happend in your vic, is that your secondairy coil was out of phase with the rest of the vic.
Meaning, that the magnetic field that your secondairy coil had, was changing in opposite direction of the magnetfield of the vic core.
Thats like friction.
Maybe you should try winding your secondairy in the other direction........
here a video, which i trully like very much for years now.....It shows magnetic heating