Jahred,
I'm also having some difficulty visualizing your wear pattern, but perhaps I can help with the right starter. I'm on a business trip in Asia now, but before I left I had a chance to "dry install" my flywheel and RobbMc starter and check clearances. I checked the mesh of the pinion with the ring gear, gap between the end of the pinion and the face of the flywheel and backlash of the pinion in the ring gear. All are within the specs recommended by Robb. Here's what I can tell you....assuming you are using the block plate with the Lakewood bell, the registration diameter in the block plate is in the correct place to locate the starter to the flywheel. What you need to look for is a starter with the pinion centered in the registration diameter. Most that I have found (including the Ford Racing mini starter) have at least some offset, which affects the radial alignment of the pinion to the ring gear. The stock Ford starters have the pinion centered in the registration diameter. So does the RobbMc starter. The other critical dimension is the gap between the end of the pinion and the flywheel face. When I ordered the starter from Robb, I did some dimensional checking and found that with my flywheel (Ford Racing made by McLeod) we had the starter assembled with a short pinion to maintain the correct gap. The Ford Racing flywheel has a recess machined on the side mounted to the crankshaft which locates the ring gear closer to the starter pinion. It sounds to me like you have too little gap in your setup and need to fix that. I highly recommend you visit Robb's website (
www.robbmcperformance.com) and study his installation instructions for the Ford BB starter to get the recommended gap. His starter is a bit pricey, but well worth it in quality and confidence in fit and function. Oh, and by the way, his starter, like the stock Ford starters uses a 9-tooth pinion. The Summit starter I have uses an 11 tooth pinion and, surprisingly, the Ford Racing mini starter uses a 10-tooth gear.
Hope this helps. Even if you don't want to buy a starter from Robb, I suggest you use his installation instructions as a guide. Good luck!
Chuck