I could be wrong but it was my understanding that blackout depended on build date.
I have an FE5 70 that is not blacked out and when I was having Galen do decoding on the car, he was nice enough to call me after seeing the VIN picture with the car apart to let me know to blackout between the dash and the window since if you don't do that you can see red when looking down at the VIN and the blackout on the cowl topic came up and he said mine was built too late and to do the other approach.
Note, the glass guy took care of blacking out the concerned area on his own when putting the glass in so I didn't have to worry about it in the end.
What the date is I don't know but my build date is April 30th. Hope that helps.