Does anyone know what these "things" are or do? On a 73 dart custom

only used on the Left coast

No, the OSAC valve was present and hooked up as original equipment on all '73s and many '74-'75-'76 cars, no matter what state they were sold in. They were even present on Canada-spec cars, though Canada's emissions regs were not as strict as the American regs until '88-'89. The thermal vacuum switch was on most early-production and a fair percentage of late-production '73s, again regardless of where they were first sold.