You'll love the 4th gen. The steering rack setup along with the nice rear suspension will make it handle really well.
98s are horrible, stay away!!!!!!! ...and leave them for me to buy cheap. I've scored 2 98s for cheap, including my current daily driver Z that I picked up for $8.3k back in 06 with 18.5k/mi on it. Has 42k on it right now. It's been a great car, like the 98 SS before it. Only issues were little things like the window motors, and a pinion leak on my Z. There are low mile examples of pretty much any year vehicle floating around; mine started as a company car, so didn't get driven much. Good thing about 98s is that they are considered less desirable, so they tend to go for less, even with low miles. I saw a beautiful low mile 6 spd 98 SS with a forged 383 languish unsold on LS1tech for months this spring/summer. Finally moved after the owner dropped the price < 9k IIRC. It was in AZ, temptation was horrible.
only thing I can think that is a draw back on the 98's is the poor cylinder head design, and the slow computer in the car, but nothing that major, and nothing that makes them hard to upgrade. Ask April lol
I might be willing to part with mine. 2002 WS6 Sunset Orange Metallic, Black interior, 6 speed, 112,000 miles
Pretty much it...apart from the computer and the upper ends, its basically all the same 98-02. I just have heard too much over the years that it was much easier once you got into the 99+'s
