Sitefinity 5.0.5023 with sdk 5.0.0000

I have successfully deployed Sitefinity 5.0.5023 to Azure. Once that was up and running I downloaded and installed the 5.0.0000 sdk and added the template importer project to my azure solution. When I repackaged and upgraded my azure host with the updated code, it successfully deployed but complained the Sitefinity version was 5000 and lower than the database version 5023. I've gone back to the Sitefinity project manager and upgraded the project back to 5023 but it seems every time I repackage the Azure project it changes the dlls back down to 5000. Any suggestions to keep it at 5023 but keep the template importer in the azure solution? Will the template importer even work with azure or is that something I need to use before I package so the files make it to azure when imported after a recycle of a host. Thanks!!