Are you sure? What tells you its 98? i see two other assualt models like this and one says its 97 and one says its 01. i dont think the admins know even if they approved it as 97... it has a 1 inch headtube which is throwing me off and the serial numbers dont make much sense. thoughts?

You have a 2000 Assault posted in the museum too!  Pretty cool!  Those were what  DB called the "Franko"design frames.  Really beefy frames with the big oval downtube and gusset.  That one is also mislabeled as a 99.  There's a bunch of bikes posted here with wrong years.  But it's cool that they're all here.

Yep both of the Franko Assault's are 2000's.  Cool frames.  I have a 2002 RM20 (Reactor) that has a similar design - kinda slimmed down the Franko thing and added updated dropouts and a euro bb.  BTW- I'm pretty sure your 98 Assault EX has a 1-1/8 headtube.  You could swap headset and use a threadless fork/stem on there if you wanted.

I appreciate the knowledge my friend. I really like this era of diamondbacks too and have been saving them as I find them. This one is the third one. It is for sale actually.