I would stay with the rod system , on the Mopars the cable comes in from front so they have always had problem melting cables , I have seen them last less than 1 hour
I may have that record beat! But if you do go the cable route, I covered mine with high temp heater hose and later used some heat shield tubing when the hose was damaged to cover the cable and the cable was fine. The cable has to loop from the shifter forward and back to the trans, B+M doesn't make a 5 foot cable and the 6 foot is nice and long where it likes to interfere with the exhaust, or the starter or .....
I agree with CP though, if you can, stay with the mechanical linkage.