Ok so I did see on the gears where it said .006, so I got as close to that as I could, I was able to get to .005 backlash. No change to the pinion. I ran the gears 5 times through each way to mark. Here's the drive side
here are gear patterns on a couple 8.8 I assembled --- these are Ford Racing gears -- aftermarket gear patterns will be slightly different ,,, what brand gear did you use and if you can load the gears more before running your pattern check it would be easier to see --- from what I can see you should be good.--- I try to keep my backlash to the minimum figure (.006-.008 ) as backlash will open up as time goes by.