I have one of those VIN 5 engines, mine's the '05 5.4 liter. Now I'm not sure of the other applicable years (may include your '04, and even out to '08), but Ford's service manual is very wrong about how to align the timing section, so your shop doing your work will have a tough time getting the engine to run using the service manual. The manual merely says, "align the timing marks," and goes into detail about the chain links but leaves out an important point about the sprocket marks. Use the main timing mark on one side of the engine, and use the 180 degree opposite timing mark on the other side (there's a small dash mark, -, that is opposite the main mark on each sprocket). This leaves the 5th phaser tabs, one pointed toward the pistons on one side of the engine, and one pointed away from the pistons on the other side of the engine. They have one drawing showing this, and it's zoomed out too far the see the timing marks, but the phaser tabs are clear.

I posted before about this problem in this thread. I used Motorcraft Service Manual online, which is a direct copy of Ford's manual, and confirmed it at the dealer as well. Ford's manual is wrong, AND THERE'S MORE! The crankshaft oil slinger goes on the engine side of the main oil seal, NOT OUTSIDE- like their manual shows.

It's not the shop, it's Ford's service manual. And just to clarify, Bank 1 is the #1 piston side, and that's the driver's RIGHT side on this engine.

This worked for me, and I'm not sure about any complicating issues like Left/Right specific phasers for different years, because they do appear to have little R's and L's for timing marks, but mine came brand new with two L's, and the one I bought to troubleshoot had an R on it. My Ford parts guy says that they are not Left/Right specific. One comforting point is that trying the 180 degree opposite timing mark could not hurt your engine, because it just swaps the intake and exhaust openings. It does not matter which side gets the main mark or the opposite mark, just that the two sides use opposite marks.

Hope this helps.

 

Can you copy/paste the info you found and point out the errors? it will make it a lot easier for him and anyone else that runs into the timing problem.
I had a similar problem with a Ford engine service manual and a very expensive 427 SOHC. The cam chain specifics were wrong and caused a lot of damage to a brand new engine,. Bent valves and broken rockers and chain. I called one of the head project engineers and he said I had a first edition manual and the info was not correct. Oh well, you live and learn. No offer of replacement of the parts or other compensation.

 

I could post the entire PDF of the procedure, but I'm sure I'd run into copyright issues, because I'm paying a subscription. After looking back at it, it's very confusing, I'm sure even for them, because they have so many different kinds of timing marks on the phasers. How that came about, I can't imagine, but it's pretty rediculous.

I can probably boil it down to an easy fix. Choose the timing marks in relation the phaser tabs.

Each phaser has two timing marks that are 180 degrees form each other. On one side of the engine, use the timing mark under the 5th phaser tab, and on the other side of the engine, use the timing mark on the opposite side of the 5th phaser tab (the 5th phaser tab is the odd one among 4 evenly spaced tabs).

So far, I've seen 5 different versions of phaser timing marks. There's an L with a chevron on it, an R with a chevron, an R with a dash, a dash alone (usually the 180 degree mark), and an R with a chevron on the opposite side of the 5th phaser tab. There may be more. What they look like doesn't matter. The manual tries to say this, but leaves out all the important points and makes it useless to a layperson. But relating it to the 5th tab so the tabs face opposite directions should be enough.

 

That sounds like that manual is almost as good as a Haynes or a Chilton's, just enough inormation to get you in trouble and in the last paragraph they tell you to take it to a pro because you're not smart enough to figure it out.