I've had Crane for about 8 years and cannot complain...except....I'm changing to Pertronix next week. The Crane unit works but the pertronix is just so damn small and simple. Crane has a nice looking "module" to mount to the firewall and a 3 wire plug that you thread through the hole in the distributor before you put the plug on. But I decided I needed to change out the distributor (nothing else to do?) because of a "flutter" around 2500 rpm. Thought it was the springs or the weights. Anyway, put it back in and -- no start! Must be me. Jiggle and shake all the connections. No Start. Okay, must have touched something else. Find other distributor with points, no start. Put in Crane... Start! Let it warm up for 3-5 minutes and , while just looking at the motor, it STOPPED! No Start. No Start. UGH! Try again... Start. Start. Okay. Drive for 15 minutes on highway and surface....sputter stop. Open bonnet...looks OK....try again... Start! Drive home and get a working points distributor and set it up including timing and place in trunk..always be ready. Order pertronix on Ebay and include new coil....get extra set. Next day, drive 200 miles without a miss.
Nothing to complain about but I use this car for transportation and cannot be stuck on the side of the road. I've had Pertronix on my 1800ES for 5 years and 75K miles and I fried 2 sets with the wrong coil (need low resistance 3 amp)but the principle of magnetic triggering is right for me (simple).

I have this unit on my 544 race car,it's the only thing I have ever installed on a race car(I have been doing this for 40 yrs.) that made a big differance it smoothed out the high RPM's .

As far as I can tell from their specs, it's pretty much identical to the other systems I've looked at.

I have an MSD-6A setup in my PV, on the B20 engine. Also have another small box that says 'Crane Cams' on it, and I'm not entirely sure what that one does.

By using a non-breaker-point system, you avoid the tendency for the point gap to close up or widen out over time, pretty much ensuring that your dwell will stay right where you set it.

Using a multiple-spark system (like the MSD) you get the plugs to fire several times during each combustion cycle, instead of just once, as a points system does.

This usually gives you much better combustion, improving both your performance and gas mileage.

While I like my old Volvo because it's pretty straight forward, without all the computers that infest cars today, I do like having the relatively simple electronic spark system for it's reliability and ease of maintenance - it either works or it doesn't!

I don't have Dyno readings from before and after the installation, but the car runs extremely well (especially for having 118,000+ miles on the engine rebuild!) and I'm getting a steady 30 mpg out on the road and not much less in town.