Dodge Charger 1973 V8 400 BIG BLOCK

The 1973 Dodge Charger arrived just as Detroit’s horsepower wars were quietly ending, squeezed by insurance surcharges, emissions rules, and a fuel crisis on the horizon. Dodge kept a 400 cubic inch big block on the order sheet anyway, offered in both 2-barrel and 4-barrel form. The numbers on paper look tame by today’s standards, but that’s largely a story about how horsepower was measured, not how the engine performed. Here’s what was really under the hood.

Amazing sound of this Big Block V8!

By 1973, the factory horsepower war that defined muscle cars for a decade was already dying – insurance surcharges, tightening emissions rules, and a looming fuel crisis were quietly strangling the big engines one model year at a time. Yet Dodge kept building Chargers with a 400 cubic inch big block under the hood, and this one still barks with the unmistakable rasp that made the breed famous in the first place. It wasn’t the meanest engine Mopar ever built, but it arrived at a moment when just keeping a big block on the order sheet was itself a small act of defiance. So what was actually happening inside that engine bay while the rest of the industry was backing away from big cubic inches?

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A Big Block Living on Borrowed Time

The 1973 Charger’s 400 came in two flavors: a standard 2-barrel version rated at 185 horsepower and 310 lb-ft of torque, and a 4-barrel high-performance variant good for 260 horsepower and 335 lb-ft. Both shared the same 4.34-inch bore and 3.38-inch stroke and an 8.2-to-1 compression ratio – modest by earlier muscle car standards, but enough to keep the big block genuinely quick for its era.

Why the Numbers Look Smaller Than the Sound

Part of why those numbers look tame on paper is a measurement change, not just a power drop: starting in 1972, automakers switched from SAE gross to SAE net horsepower ratings, which factored in accessories, exhaust, and drivetrain losses that gross figures had always ignored. That made every engine look weaker on a spec sheet even when the hardware barely changed year to year. The 400 remained a genuine big block and a popular, more affordable alternative to Chrysler’s 440 – and it’s exactly the engine responsible for the sound this car is prized for today.

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