99-04 hands down. they are all over the place, very reliable, and a good platform if he decides to mod it in the future. Pre 99 (96-98) pretty much require head and intake swaps if you wanna get somewhere with the power…in 99 they went to power improved heads/intake. 94-95s are slugs and suck over all. Anything prior you wont find at a dealer around here most likely.
fwiw, i picked mine up from a used lot in b-lo 5.5 years ago…not 1 problem to date.