I never thought about this much but is there a front and back to a flex plate? Looking at the stock one I have in the garage, the ring gear appears to be centered.
The reason this question has come up is, my engine apparently originally came with a top mounted starter. When I bought the boat, there was a starter mounted on the bottom. I went ahead and changed out the starter with a mini high torque and also installed a new SFI flex plate the same way the other one came off.
At the end of last year, I had an issue with starting the engine....it seemed the flex plate was warped. Last night, I was able to get the flex plate pretty straight but the starter was still disengaging so I swapped it out with another.
To back step a little, with the flex plate being a bit warped, the starter would disengage after about a 1/2 turn of the flex plate. With the new starter and straightened plate, all seems good.....for now.