Starter hanging on flexplate

It's a racing mini-starter, 6 races old. It's on a SBC.

I have a shim kit with the bendix shim and a shim between the block and starter. When I turned the motor over it sounded like it was grinding really bad and hung on the starter. When the motor fired off it sparked inside the bellhousing pretty good. I put a washer on the inside bolt between block and starter to angle it a little bit away from the flexplate. It's a $20-something speedway motors flexplate.

What ya'll think I need to do to fix it?

i had an issue with the starter hanging on the flexplate once. it didn't spart like you've said though. turned out, i'd put the flexplate on backwards. turned it around. fixed it.

sounds like its shimmed to far an teeth catchin on each other,...flexplate could be backwards too

I had the same problem last year and I put a shim behind the flex plate and cured the problem.

IF the flexplate is on correctly, add another washer to the inside starter bolt. On my current setup I had to add two 3/8" washers to the outside starter bolt to space it in correctly. The total washer height is well over .125". I use washers instead of a shim because it helps to angle the starter more compared to using a shim that is half the length of the mounting block. Plus it doesnt put a much of a bind on the mounting block when you torque it down.

shimming one side of the starter will put a bind on the mount, and it doesn't matter if its .0015 or .150 its not right, shimming away should be done on both bolts, and getting the starter closer to flex plate should be done by milling the mounting surface of the starter, i have shimmed them every which way, there is no reason to ever shim the inside bolt by itself, if its too tight shim both bolts, in extreme cases i have shimmed the outside bolt to tighten up the mesh, but only if im not in a situation to mill the mounting block on the starter

is this on a stock gm block? there are a few dart shp blocks out with the bolt holes misaligned, if its one of these good luck.

It's a GM block and the flexplate is on the correct way. I figured out a way to fix it. Not sure how well it'll hold but it works. I used the outer race for a wide-5 hub and put it in the nose of the starter plate. It took 3 races and 2 shim kits to get the bendix far enough back to keep it from hitting the flexplate. It has all kinds of room. Every so often the bendix hits the flexplate and just grinds against it. I can hit it a few times and it'll catch and be good to go.