I have been thinking about upgrading the headlights on my 78 Mercury to some diamond cut glass headlight housings which I am not sure how they would look on such a old car with a clear glass headlight and a smaller bulb ment to be used with flashers or parking lights but I was curious about the halogen bulb selection.

The ones I found they come with H4 5000k Super White halogen bulbs. They are low/high beam bulbs and I would need to switch two of them out to the H7 series for a two prong "high beam" halogen bulb for the two inner headlight housings to use the orignal harness.

Question I have is about issues. I saw one site listing a upgrade harness that plugs into yours to withstand the extra heat of the brighter bulbs. Problem is I dont want super bright halogen bulbs, I just want something alittle more than oem. Well what I am finding is the high beams on napa`s site for my car is listed as being rated at just 5 watts. Every H7 Super White bulb Ive seen is 100 watt. But I am just wondering is there a H4 and H7 style halogen bulb that is more or less a oem rated bulb or just alittle hotter? I hate to cut my oem harness just for something that I might think look stupid and go back to oem sealed beam halogen bulbs.

On a side note I want to ask peoples opinions on how the following housings would look on a 78 Cougar XR7.

1977-1986 1978 Mercury Cougar Diamond Cut Headlight: eBay Motors (item 270586234032 end time Aug-27-10 16:47:24 PDT)

The blue bulb at the bottom I was thinking about swaping out for an amber one to match the amber bulbs of the same style mounted in the top of the turn signal housings. I dont know if I get the housings if I will keep them blue or not but I am thinking I would wire them up to be activated by my alarm instead of the headlights.

This is the car those housings will go in for those that dont know. Personally I cant visualize how the car would look with them and I just dont know if they would make the car look cheap or look too much like a new car. All I know is I am getting tired of replacing the bulbs only to have them fill up with water yet again. I am also not concerned with getting away from stock cause I planned on building the engine up and run headers as well as some aftermarket gauges with EL lighting and a reverse glow cougar logo on the gauges. But I am running Halogen bulbs now with no problems I just would like to upgrade to a better housing since it seems the sealed beam housings are poorly made now since they keep leaking water into them or condensing on the inside and filling with water.

The only other concern I had was about my alternator. Not sure what the output is but I found some 55watt highbeam H7`s and not sure if they would tax my electrical system with four bulbs using 55 watts on high beams. I know my battery is higher amperage than oem but its the same size as oem. So if anyone can help I would greatly appreciate it.