diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 7d447fb7c..07783e98c 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -1,5 +1,9 @@
 # Changelog
 
+## Development Build: equuleus-rc1+dev79
+- Relative prefix exclusion for cfe implementation file search
+- See <https://github.com/nasa/cFE/pull/2494>
+
 ## Development Build: equuleus-rc1+dev71
 - updating cFE to use new versioning system
 - clean up and move table build scripts
diff --git a/cmake/global_functions.cmake b/cmake/global_functions.cmake
index 7a363f0ea..494b6c62c 100644
--- a/cmake/global_functions.cmake
+++ b/cmake/global_functions.cmake
@@ -54,10 +54,13 @@ function(cfe_locate_implementation_file OUTPUT_VAR FILE_NAME)
   foreach(BASEDIR ${IMPL_SEARCH_BASEDIRS})
     list(APPEND IMPL_SEARCH_PATH "${BASEDIR}${FILE_NAME}")
 
+    # Get relative directory
+    string(REPLACE ${MISSION_SOURCE_DIR} "" RELATIVEDIR ${BASEDIR})
+
     # A target-specific prefixed filename gets priority over a direct filename match
-    # But do not include this variant if the prefix is already part of the basedir
+    # But do not include this variant if the prefix is already part of the relative search path 
     foreach (PREFIX ${LOCATEIMPL_ARG_PREFIX})
-      if (NOT "${BASEDIR}" MATCHES "/${PREFIX}/")
+      if (NOT "${RELATIVEDIR}" MATCHES "/${PREFIX}/")
         list(APPEND IMPL_SEARCH_PATH "${BASEDIR}${PREFIX}_${FILE_NAME}")
       endif()
     endforeach()
diff --git a/modules/core_api/fsw/inc/cfe_version.h b/modules/core_api/fsw/inc/cfe_version.h
index 1304226f0..12a67b4d2 100644
--- a/modules/core_api/fsw/inc/cfe_version.h
+++ b/modules/core_api/fsw/inc/cfe_version.h
@@ -26,7 +26,7 @@
 #define CFE_VERSION_H
 
 /* Development Build Macro Definitions */
-#define CFE_BUILD_NUMBER    75 /**< @brief Development: Number of development git commits since CFE_BUILD_BASELINE */
+#define CFE_BUILD_NUMBER    79 /**< @brief Development: Number of development git commits since CFE_BUILD_BASELINE */
 #define CFE_BUILD_BASELINE  "equuleus-rc1" /**< @brief Development: Reference git tag for build number */
 #define CFE_BUILD_DEV_CYCLE "equuleus-rc2" /**< @brief Development: Release name for current development cycle */
 #define CFE_BUILD_CODENAME  "Equuleus" /**< @brief: Development: Code name for the current build */