Clutches on high performance cars?

The only ones with a bell crank are the 4-cylinders. The 5.0 has a single cable from the quadrant to the clutch fork. I eliminated the bellcrank on mine by finding an earlier turbo 2.3 bell housing and switching to a 5.0 style cable.

The stock setup is self adjusting, just pull up on the clutch pedal to re-adjust. However these quadrants where made of plastic and known to fail. I just helped a buddy of mine switch his '89 over to an aluminum quadrant and an adjustable cable. He says the clutch feels much better.

I am well aware that the 5.0s and later don't use bellcranks, but I was using that in the generic sense. They still use cables and linkages and some of Ford's other RWD cars do use bellcranks.

Also, that's not a self-adjusting setup, that's a manual adjustment. :p Hydraulics are self adjusting, like disc brakes are.

Why not just lift the rear end and watch a tire spin? I have seen this on other manual transmission cars.

Usually that doesn't happen if the clutch is depressed with most cars. Depending on how well assembled the particular Mustang was, the clutch may not be making enough contact with the pedal in all the way to turn the rear wheels - but they all will have enough contact to turn the transmission's output shaft.
 
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Also, that's not a self-adjusting setup, that's a manual adjustment. :p Hydraulics are self adjusting, like disc brakes are.

Really for as simple as it is they work well enough. I mean there are millions of these on the road without much issue. The adjustable cable and the aluminum quadrant from 5.0 Resto is only $50 and fixes many of the known problems and makes it more reliable.

That being said, I did have a failure one in my Mustang. Earlier this year, while having a spirited drive through the mountains in Arkansas, the wire broke at the ferrule on the quadrant side. It was a used cable and I don't know how many mile where on it. I was able to limp it to the next stop, load it on a trailer, get it to the next town and bought a new cable for $30, put it on the car in the parking lot and drove it the remaining 200 miles of the trip.
 
I was chatting to one of the chaps at the Bristol showroom a while ago. I suspect a little exaggeration based on the fact that it was a rival product, but he said he'd been dealing with a chap who'd previously had a Lamborghini (Murcielago, IIRC) that was going through clutches on at least a yearly basis. I didn't think it prudent to ask how often the Bristol Fighter was likely to need its clutch replacing :)
 
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