I bought a Holley from Amazon..............when it arrived it was a no name "brand".  I had to flip the spring around, but it was so tight in the housing I ended up bending it...

I replaced this one with an Edlebrock I had.  I had to bend the end to make a ring.  It seems to be working better than the first one.

Hello  Put a Holley   electric choke on a Holley 4000. Some electric coke caps do not have the loop in spring to catch the arm to move choke plate. I assume that is why you bent it. My problem was the spring was clocked in wrong direction, it was made  for later model holleys. Had to remove spring from housing and turn it over.

If it's the original 55 carburetor, it should have a "divorced" choke that's mounted on the manifold, not the carburetor. Yes the choke gets hot, but not so hot that it can burn your hand, and you shouldn't see smoke coming from it. It can take 2-5 minutes for the choke to fully open. 

I retro fitted an electric choke on my Holley 4000 (55 Tbird).  I bought an inexpensive choke from Amazon to see if I like it.

I had to bend the tab to wrap around the lever in the choke housing.   I connected it to 12 V to test it and see if the spring was moving in the correct direction.   The black housing was very warm, to the point I couldn't keep my hand on it for very long.   I never used an electric choke.  I know the technology is using current through the bimetalic spring which in turn would create some heat.  I am wondering if it's too hot???